https://biochar-us.org/usbi-february-2023-newsletter
Category: Carbon Capture
WORLD’S FIRST AGRI-FOCUSED SATELLITE LAUNCHES
https://www.newsdakota.com/2023/01/04/worlds-first-agri-focused-satellite-launches/
(NewsDakota.com/NAFB) – The first of seven satellites for agriculture launched into space Tuesday by SpaceX. Built by Dragonfly Aerospace, the satellite is part of the Transporter-6 mission for customer EOS Data Analytics.
The remaining six satellites of the constellation will be deployed over the next three years. The EOS Data Analytics project is the world’s first agriculture-focused satellite constellation providing the industry with high-quality data to support efficient and sustainable practices. Images obtained from Dragonfly’s EOS SAT-1 will deliver information for harvest monitoring, application mapping, seasonal planning and assessments that analyze information such as soil moisture, yield prediction and biomass levels.
The data will support growers with reducing carbon dioxide emissions and help them to develop sustainable agricultural methods. The company says the information will have important environmental benefits for the planet and help prevent natural habitats from being diminished for crop growth and maintain biodiversity.
Innovative Fertilizer Grants – $500 Million Available
Thursday, 7/14, 1pm (est) – AEA’s Dir. of Education David Miller explains how a shift to regenerative agriculture using AEA systems can help protect your yield.
‘Off the charts’ chemical shortages hit U.S. farms
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/off-charts-chemical-shortages-hit-us-farms-2022-06-27/
Soybean fields are inspected as part of University of Wisconsin research trial into whether the weed killer dicamba drifted away from where it was sprayed in Arlington, Wisconsin, U.S., August 2, 2018. REUTERS/Tom Polansek/File Photo
CHICAGO, June 27 (Reuters) – U.S. farmers have cut back on using common weedkillers, hunted for substitutes to popular fungicides and changed planting plans over persistent shortages of agricultural chemicals that threaten to trim harvests.
Spraying smaller volumes of herbicides and turning to less-effective fungicides increase the risk for weeds and diseases to dent crop production at a time when global grain supplies are already tight because the Ukraine war is reducing the country’s exports.
Interviews with more than a dozen chemical dealers, manufacturers, farmers and weed specialists showed shortages disrupted U.S. growers’ production strategies and raised their costs.
Shawn Inman, owner of distributor Spinner Ag Incorporated in Zionsville, Indiana, said supplies are the tightest in his 24-year career.
“This is off the charts,” Inman said. “Everything was delayed, delayed, delayed.”
Shortages further reduce options for farmers battling weeds that developed resistance to glyphosate, the key ingredient in the commonly used Roundup herbicide, after decades of overuse in the United States.
Prices for glyphosate and glufosinate, another widely used herbicide sold under the brand Liberty, jumped more than 50% from last year, dealers said, padding profit at companies like Bayer AG (BAYGn.DE), BASF SE (BASFn.DE) and Corteva Inc (CTVA.N).
The U.S. Agriculture Department said it heard from farmers and food companies concerned about whether agribusinesses are hiking prices for goods like chemicals, seeds and fertilizer to boost profit, not simply because of supply and demand factors. The agency has launched an inquiry into competition in the sector, and some watchdog groups said it is moving too slowly.
Agrichemical companies blame the COVID-19 pandemic, transportation delays, a lack of workers and extreme weather for shortages. Fertilizer and some seeds are also in short supply globally. read more
SUPPLY CHAIN STALLED
More difficulties are on the horizon, as BASF, which formulates glufosinate, told Reuters the supply situation will not improve significantly next year.
“It’s going to take more time than what our customers, farmers and retailers would have thought,” said Scott Kay, vice president of U.S. crops for BASF.
Tennessee farmer Jason Birdsong said he abandoned plans to plant soybeans on 100 acres after waiting months to receive Liberty he ordered from Nutrien Ag Solutions. He ultimately received less than half his order for 125 gallons and planted corn on the land instead. Birdsong said he is better able to control weeds in corn than soybeans.
Read more at the link above~~
Reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago, Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Matthew Lewis
MSU animal science professor exploring environmental benefits of regenerative agriculture
Michigan State University C.S. Mott Professor of Sustainable Agriculture Jason Rowntree is examining the benefits and applicability of regenerative agriculture-based livestock systems.
Regenerative agriculture is a relatively new approach to livestock farming that emphasizes the reduction of farming inputs and restoring ecosystem services such as soil carbon sequestration and improved water cycling.
“These regenerative agriculture principles suggest that modern livestock systems can be redesigned to better capitalize on animals’ ecological niches as biological up-cyclers and may be necessary to fully regenerate some landscapes,” wrote Rowntree in a paper recently published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems.
“Regenerative agriculture is a newer movement in agriculture with the overarching premise of trying to improve land while simultaneously growing food – meaning its aim is improving the land, improving the ecosystem, and improving productivity with certain ecological boundaries.”
Rowntree worked with Quantis and General Mills, as well as White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, to conduct a whole-farm life cycle assessment from grazing land that was originally converted from degraded cropland. The team compared production outputs, greenhouse gas emissions, environmental footprints and soil health outcomes to a conventional, commodity production system of each respective species.
White Oaks Farms transitioned to regenerative agriculture practices in 1995. The 20-year study of the farm’s indicated considerably improvements in soil health and carbon sequestration in a transition from degraded cropland to perennial pasture.
The paper indicates benefits to a multi-species pasture rotation system that raises multiple types of livestock animals. Rowntree said in the context of this experiment, land use should also be considered.
“When comparing required land between the two systems for food production, (the regenerative techniques) required two-and-a-half times more land when compared to business as usual agriculture. Thus, while our model indicates that the farm studied can simultaneously produce protein while regenerating land, considerably greater land area is needed when compared to today’s agriculture,” he said.
Rowntree suggests these types of studies can add to the ongoing conversation around preserving farmland and protecting the environment, while producing food and remaining profitable.
“These complexities must be considered in the global debate of agricultural practice and land,” he said. “Do we throw this system out because it takes more land? No. Do we throw today’s agriculture out because it requires more energy? No. What we do is we try to blend the two and take some of these principles and put them into larger-scale agriculture to get better outcomes.”
~~read more at the link above.
How Soil Microbes Improve Fertilizer Efficiency
https://www.holganix.com/blog/how-soil-microbes-improve-fertilizer-efficiency
https://www.holganix.com/blog/how-soil-microbes-improve-fertilizer-efficiency
By Kaitlyn Ersek on Feb 10, 2022 10:15:00 AM
Did you know, last year the U.S. spent $18.6B (20.5M tons) on fertilizer? Over 60 percent of that fertilizer was used on corn, soybean, wheat, and cotton.
Yet scientific literature states that over 50% of fertilizer is lost because it becomes tied in the soil, washes off, erodes, or becomes volatilized in the air. That loss equates to $9.3 B USD.
“The waste is outrageous. And the thing is, soil microbes improve fertilizer efficiency,” explains Dave Stark, P.hD., and President of Agriculture at Holganix, LLC. “Biologically healthy soils create greater corn yields per unit of nitrogen input.”
In this blog, we discuss how soil microbes improve fertilizer efficiency. Click the link to skip to the topic of your choosing, or continue scrolling to read the full report.
- Higher nitrogen efficiency with higher microbial populations
- What about phosphorus and potassium?
- Accessing nutrients via crop residue breakdown
- A note on diversity and microbial inoculants
- Video interview with Dave Stark, Ph.D. on soil microbes and fertilizer efficiency
Higher Nitrogen Efficiency With Higher Microbial Populations
A meta-study from Nature Research Scientific Reports reviewed 230 published studies on how microbes interact with fertilizer. According to that study, only 36-42% of the current year’s applied nitrogen goes to the crop (corn, rice, and small grains).
In fact, soil organic nitrogen turnover (the nitrogen that is mineralized or cycled by microbes) contributes more than the nitrogen we apply to the crop.
And, since microbes increase the soil’s ability to mineralize or cycle nitrogen, the presence of high microbial populations leads to better nitrogen efficiency.
“Using a microbial and using farming techniques that foster beneficial microbial populations, increases your farm’s ability to use fertilizer efficiency and can reduce the need for fertilizer,” explains Dave.
“This is so critical to farming today. Fertilizer prices are high. Farmers need an edge to reduce costs and increase their crop productivity.”
What About Phosphorus And Potassium?
“The top six inches of soil is abundant in phosphorus and potassium, but extraordinarily little of that phosphorus and potassium is bioavailable,” states Dave. In other words, phosphorus and potassium become bound in the soil and the plant cannot access them.
Yet, while the plant cannot access these bound nutrients, soil microbes can! Microbes break down phosphorus, potassium, and other micronutrients and feed them back into the plant root.
This is just another way microbes increase fertilizer efficiency.
Accessing Nutrients Via Crop Residue Breakdown
In addition to solubilizing and mineralizing nutrients, microbes also make nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium available by breaking down crop residue. Crop residue is filled with valuable nutrients. As an example, corn stover holds about 17 lbs of nitrogen, 4 lbs of phosphorus, and 34 lbs of potassium per ton.
Having an abundant source of degrading soil microbes allows farmers to use no-till farming techniques to access these nutrients.
A Note On Diversity And Using Microbial Inoculants
Microbial inoculants are soil amendments containing microbial species. Most microbial inoculants contain just a handful of bacterial species, while others like, Holganix Bio 800+, contain a large diversity of soil microbe species including bacteria, fungi, and protists.
Choosing to use a microbial product that contains only a few species of plant growth-promoting bacteria or nutrient solubilizing bacteria might boost root mass or improve the availability of a single nutrient, such as phosphorus. However, products with just a few species of microbes, can’t do everything. Instead, they focus on a narrow piece of the puzzle. For example, a bacteria-only product won’t cycle nitrogen efficiently since bacteria require a lot of nitrogen to grow. Microbes that eat bacteria, namely fungi and protists, require much less nitrogen and cycle it back to the crop.
With Holganix Bio 800+, growers do not have to choose; over 800 species of bacteria, fungi and protists are present including a broad range of plant growth promoters and nutrient solubilizers. In fact, the microbes in Bio 800+ consume fertilizer and keep it in the root zone, all while cycling nutrients back to the plant so more nutrients go to the crop instead of being lost in the environment.
Holganix Bio 800+ has consistently given farmers a 2-10x ROI through increased crop yields and improved fertilizer efficiency. Bio 800+ is a valuable tool that allows growers to back off inputs knowing more of the inputs put down will actually feed the crop.
When it comes to the turf and ornamental industry, Holganix Bio 800+ has consistently allowed turf managers to reduce their fertilizer use by 50% without sacrificing results.
Want To Learn More About How Soil Microbes Can Increase Fertilizer Efficiency?
Watch the webinar recording below for a conversation with Holganix President of Agriculture, Dave Stark, Ph.D. on
- How microbes increase nutrient uptake and availability (including phosphorus)
- The role of soil microbes in soil health and crop performance
- Insights and data from university studies, and Holganix studies, on how microbes increase fertilizer efficiency
Farmers, foresters to get $1 billion for climate projects
https://grist.org/beacon/farmers-foresters-to-get-1-billion-for-climate-projects/
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a $1 billion effort this week to combat agriculture-based greenhouse gas emissions.
Through the new Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program, the USDA will offer funds to farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners to adopt practices that curb their climate pollution or sequester carbon dioxide. Grantees might reduce or eliminate tilling, which releases carbon into the air, for example, or plant trees on agricultural lands. Successful applicants will be given up to $100 million to implement their proposals.
Funds will come from the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation, which can borrow up to $30 billion annually from the U.S. Treasury to “stabilize, support, and protect farm income and practices.”
“This is about creating domestic markets that will provide American agriculture and forestry with the resources to do what they know to do best — to feed the world, while serving as great stewards of our land and water,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack as he unveiled the program at Lincoln University in Missouri.
As of 2019, agriculture accounted for one-tenth of the U.S.’s annual climate pollution, so cleaning up the sector is critical for hitting the Biden administration’s emissions reduction targets. Last year, President Joe Biden promised to slash economy-wide emissions 50 percent below 2005 values by 2030.
In addition to helping the country slash emissions, some of the projects eligible for grants under the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities may also help temper the growing risk of climate change for U.S. food producers. According to research from Stanford University, climate change has already caused some $27 billion in crop insurance losses from 1991 to 2017, and experts predict those losses will get worse in the coming decades as droughts, floods, and soil degradation increase.
Aaron Shier, senior government relations representative for the National Farmers Union, praised the USDA’sannouncement. “We see these pilot projects as an important step in continuing to advance the work farmers and ranchers are doing to tackle climate change and build a more resilient farm and food system,” he told me.
~~for active links in the article, click on the link atop the article…
How Satellite Imagery is Helping to Transform Soil Carbon Monitoring For Growers
https://www.deepplanet.ai/blog/soil-carbon-monitoring
By: Deep Planet
Healthy soil systems act as an important natural carbon sink for the planet by sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide and helping to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations. The value of our planet’s soil as a carbon store cannot be overlooked.
Capable of storing twice the amount of carbon found in the atmosphere and three times that in above ground vegetation, the health of our soil systems is vital for mitigating climate change (Davis et al., 2017).
Soil carbon sequestration is not only important for mitigating climate change, it is also important for improving the general soil quality for vine growth as well (Winetitles, 2021).
Why should we monitor soil carbon:
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Improving Crop Performance: Building up healthy levels of soil organic matter can provide growers with higher yielding harvests showing greater resilience in changing climates (Paustian et al., 2019)
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Carbon Trading: With the proposed advent of an international carbon market and carbon trading, accurate monitoring of soil carbon will become increasingly important (Johns et al,. 2017).
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Mitigating Climate Change: Optimising natural carbon sequestration by improving soil conservation practices and restoring degraded soils can help to reduce concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As little as a 0.1% increase in organic matter can result in an additional 8.9 tonnes of CO2 sequestered per hectare annually by growers.
Hyperspectral & Multispectral Imagery – Only a small proportion of the wavelength spectrum is visible to the human eye. Wavelengths outside the visible spectrum are utilised in hyperspectral and multispectral imagery
Current Monitoring Methods:
Today, the most widely used methods involve regular field testing and laboratory analysis but the process is laborious and expensive when done manually (Johns et al,. 2017). Successfully manually sampling soil carbon between 0-30cm depth with a standard error of less than 2 tonnes/ha is estimated to cost around $1,800 per hectare, representing significant financial outlay when conducted at scale (Singh et al., 2012).
Our Technology:
Deep Planet uses satellite imagery from satellites including radar and hyperspectral satellites to develop an efficient soil carbon monitoring tool for viticulturists.
VineSignal can help you baseline and monitor soil organic carbon in your vineyards, across an entire holding with reduced time and labour costs compared to manual monitoring.
Through thousands of experiments based on satellite imagery, we have established the perfect digital signature to detect soil organic carbon for vineyards. This is based on hyperspectral, multispectral, and radar satellite images and manually collected soil samples across 2,000 hectares. Deep Planet’s machine learning models can detect organic soil carbon at an accuracy of 86%.
The Future:
With more data collected through the next year, Deep Planet will continually improve the accuracy of detection and incorporate carbon storage in vegetation. Translating this to action, Deep Planet will help winegrowers identify areas where improvements can be made through common methods such as cover cropping, etc.
We would love to hear from you:
Want to learn how satellite imagery and AI can support you in your carbon farming journey. Register for a demo by using the link below.
