Topsoil Articles
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Unearthing a sustainable soil health strategy
Most farmers can agree that although there’s no silver bullet to a bumper crop, healthy soil plays a crucial role, from seeding to harvest and beyond. But how much is understood about what really happens beneath the surface of the field? “Well-functioning soil will retain, provide and recycle nutrients and water, and will support a diverse array of biota in the soil-plant ...
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Soil compaction, an underestimated problem
Soil compaction is becoming a major issue worldwide. Not only in the Netherlands but globally the soil is deteriorating very badly. Soil compaction is a form of soil degradation, in which the soil structure is lost because the soil is compressed. This global problem is still underestimated and causes problems for agriculture, nature, and climate. Furthermore, soil compaction leads to loss of ...
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Compost, manure, Topsoil, and mulch, Understanding the difference
It’s essential to know how to use organic materials to get the most out of your plants while landscaping your yard or setting up a new garden. Organic waste can be efficiently mixed and composted with the help of the waste composting machine. Mulch, compost, and Topsoil are three of the most commonly used materials. It’s essential to consider the differences between ...
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High-Tech Greenhouses could be the Future of Agriculture
In a small town in Eastern Kentucky, the future of agriculture is growing. A 2.76 million-square-foot facility is being created on 60 acres of land which will utilize environmentally-friendly techniques to help feed a nation with an aging farmer population, declining farmland and a changing climate. The region which was previously known for its booming coal-mining industry that brought power to ...
By Brite Solar
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High Lea Farm – Dorset, England - Case Study
Objective: High Lea Farm in Dorset provides 125kw / hr to the grid and also provides 147kw of thermal heat to local butchers, a grain drying store, and also an old schoolhouse. Site background: Mixed farm based project. 125kw electricity. 147kw heat/thermal. Site feedstock: Slurry Fodder beet Farmyard manure Site clearance The initial stage of this project was the site ...
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Is Conservation Tillage the Future of Agriculture?
Like any business, farmers must manage their farms with one foot in the present and the other in the future. It’s not enough to focus just on yields. We must also consider the impact those yields have on our fields. To ensure sustainable crop production, the implementation of a method like conservation tillage is vital. Conservation tillage is a tilling process that leaves at least ...
By Growers
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What it Means: American Burying Beetle Status Change
This is the first post of our new series "What They Said - What It Means," where we unscramble the jargon around an environmental topic and discuss what it really means for project development and for you. In this post, we dive into the reasons behind the downlisting of the American burying beetle and the implications of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 4(d) rule on developments in the central ...
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Great equipment breeds great success - Case Study
Jersey's Stilo Paving & Excavating has grown alongside RM Although in business for more than 30 years, New Jersey’s Stilo Paving & Excavating still maintains a youthful, vibrant glow. Much of that is due to the owners, Bob and Patricia Stilo, keeping it a family-owned company, with two of their children heavily involved in its management. Son Bobby Stilo serves as the director of ...
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4 Benefits of Using Power-Z Sustainable Soil Additive for Agriculture Companies
There are many complex aspects to soil quality that can affect the growth and health of plants. Soils in different areas have different physical and chemical compositions that can be good or bad for farming. In the case of naturally rich and beneficial soil, over time, nutrients will be depleted. For other soils, plants could not be grown well there naturally. In those cases, a sustainable soil ...
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An area of topsoil equivalent to 2,700 football pitches would be lost in just 90 mins!
At a 2014 forum held in Rome and organised by the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Maria — Helena Semedo gave a stark warning to all those attending that it takes 1,000 years to generate 3 centimetres of top soil and approximately one-third has been lost. If the present rate of soil degradation continued, all the World’s topsoil would be gone within 60 years. She went to ...
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Hit the Spring Planting Target with Hydraulic Down Force
Will Hutchinson enjoys a good challenge, especially when it comes to improving production on his row crop, wheat and alfalfa farm near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. So when he saw the opportunity to leverage Ag Leader’s Hydraulic Down Force system to prevent a common problem and improve his planting operations on acres where he plants cover crops, he jumped at the chance. Two years later, ...
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How a new way of thinking about soil sparked a national movement in agriculture
For three weeks every month, Ray Archuleta captivates audiences with a few handfuls of soil. He begins with two clumps, dropping them into water. The soil from a farm where the soil isn’t tilled holds together, while the tilled soil immediately disperses, indicating poor soil structure. Next, volunteers from the audience — mostly farmers and ranchers — pour water over a soil ...
By Ensia
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5 Essential Farm Implements For Smallholders
What are your top tools or farm implements that make life as a smallholder that much easier? What’s on your Christmas wish list or gets regular use around your plot? We asked our team to share their essential implements and have created the Farm Tech Supplies Top 5 List of Farm Implements! If you have a trusted piece of farm equipment you couldn’t do without, share a photo on our ...
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Four Crushing, Screening Demos Lined Up in Ohio and Michigan
Ohio and Michigan are getting four open house demonstrations at four different locations and facilities. The organizing companies, Midwest Aggregate Parts, LLC and MB America, Inc. will showcase the processing capabilities of the crushing and screening attachments. The demonstrations will include the processing of concrete, asphalt, topsoil, compost and stone. The two companies are working with ...
By MB Crusher
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Let’s stop treating our soil like dirt
One of the most underappreciated resources on our planet, soil does much more than grow crops The United Nations’ International Year of Soils is hardly a media darling. Maybe it’s because many people are like me, who recall Mom’s words: “Take off your shoes! Don’t bring dirt into the house!” With all the challenges in the world today, why would we recognize ...
By Ensia
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Seasonal changes in the performance of a catch crop for mitigating diffuse agricultural pollution
An in situ technology for mitigating diffuse agricultural pollution using catch crops was developed for simultaneously preventing nitrate groundwater pollution, reducing nitrous oxide (N2O) gas emissions, and removing salts from the topsoil. Seasonal changes in the performance of a catch crop were investigated using lysimeters in a full-scale greenhouse experiment with 50 d cultivation of dent ...
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The fate of lead at abandoned and active shooting ranges in a boreal pine forest
Changes in leaching, availability, bioaccumulation, and vertical distribution of lead (Pb) in soil 20 years after the cessation of shooting activity were studied by comparing three pine forest sites in southern Finland: an active shooting range, an abandoned shooting range, and a noncontaminated control site. At both shooting ranges, shooting activity had lasted for 20 years, but it had taken ...
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How Much Will it Cost to Save Our Economy’s Foundation?
During the past two summers, Pakistan was hit with catastrophic floods. The record flooding in the late summer of 2010 was the most devastating natural disaster in Pakistan’s history. The media coverage reported torrential rains as the cause, but there is much more to the story. When Pakistan was created in 1947, some 30 percent of the landscape was covered by forests. Now it is 4 percent. ...
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Composting case study: Kurtz Bros tackles yard waste contamination
Kurtz bros., INc. (Columbus, OH) supplies both consumers and landscape contractors with high-quality mulch, compost, soil amendments and topsoil. The company operates several organic recycling facilities throughout the state of Ohio spanning from Columbus (the state’s largest organic recycling facility) to Cleveland. Its local yard waste facilities accept everything from leaves and grass ...
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Topsoil properties as affected by tillage systems in the rolling pampa region of Argentina
Improved topsoil structural quality is expected under no-till farming, but soil physical constraints can develop under continuous no-till. Our objectives were: to evaluate the properties of loam, silty loam, and silty clay loam soils under various management practices on a regional scale; to clarify the relationship between soil organic matter pools and soil physical properties; and to find a ...
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