Sandy soils are among the most challenging environments for agriculture because water drains quickly and nutrients are easily lost. A new long-term field experiment shows that combining biochar with compost and sludge can dramatically improve how sandy soils retain water, offering a practical strategy for farming in drought-prone regions.

Change is afoot in the U.S. beef supply chain. More dairy cattle seem to be specifically bred to generate a calf to be sold as beef, but so far documentation for the trend is mostly anecdotal.

In an invited talk at the USDA’s 102^nd Annual Agricultural Outlook Forum, University of Tennessee agricultural economist Charles Martinez is poised to show the impact of beef on dairy crossed cattle on the U.S. beef supply chain and propose a new category for recording cattle market data: beef on dairy. Martinez says documenting this developing market will help industry analysts understand the true nature of the U.S. beef supply chain as well as the economic state of the beef and dairy industries.

Research shows that allowing natural vegetation to grow back in mountainous areas and on steep slopes and moving production to more fertile areas will both reduce climate emissions and increase biodiversity.

When it comes to biodiversity, researchers and the public tend to focus on large-scale patterns. This overlooks a hidden but precious diversity: small, inconspicuous wasps, midges, flies, beetles and other insects that live in plants. These tiny creatures are actually very common, as shown by a team of researchers at the University of Göttingen and the Hungarian HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research. The researchers measured, dissected and searched for insects in over 23,000 shoots of grass. They found 255 species of insects in ten perennial grass species, which last year-round, but not a single one in five annual, short-lived grass species. The longer the shoots of the perennial grass species, the higher the diversity of insects found in them. Around a third of the insect species feed directly on the grass. The remaining species, mostly wasps, live parasitically on the insects that feed on plants. Almost two-thirds of insects specialize in grasses, half of them even in specific grass species. The conclusion is that areas in grassland should not be mown for several years: stable insect populations need undisturbed refuges with intact shoots of grass. The results were published in Basic and Applied Ecology.

First large-scale experiment shows fire whirls burn oil spills faster and cleaner than fire pools, proving their game-changing potential for ocean cleanups.

Larry Steckel, Extension weed specialist and researcher in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, has been named a Fellow of the Weed Science Society of America.

What’s the key to growing resilient crops that can survive tough conditions? Researchers at the University of Missouri are getting to the root of it — literally.