In this edition:

• Sixty years of crop diversification with perennials improves yields more than no-tillage in Ohio grain cropping systems
• Conservation Tillage Practices on GHG Emissions, Soil Health and Overall Agricultural Sustainability
• Long-term continuous no-till corn-soybean systems: Examining soil carbon sequestration and nitrogen accumulation across various pools
• Assessing the agricultural, environmental, and economic effects of crop diversity management: A comprehensive review on crop rotation and cover crop practices
• Cover Crops Optimize Soil Fertility and Soybean Productivity in the Cerrado of MATOPIBA, Brazil
• Short-term no-tillage improves soil water retention and maintains soil aeration at high moisture conditions despite reduced macroporosity
• Tillage Radish as Cover Crop Improves Soil Health Indicators Depending on Pedoclimatic Conditions.

Indigo Ag today announced the completion of its second carbon crop

The largest terrestrial carbon sink on earth is the planet’s soil. One of the fears that many scientists have is that a warming planet will liberate significant portions of the soil’s carbon, turning it into carbon dioxide (CO2) gas, and so further accelerate the pace of planetary warming. One of the key players in this story is the microbe: invisible, and yet the predominant form of life on earth. Read more in this article from the University of Massachusetts.

Farmers do not often think about how their management practices can influence the rate of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis has always been assumed to be constant, but it is not. Read more in this article from Ohio's Country Journal.

There is a lot of talk about climate change. Many people point to agriculture as one of the potential sources to the answer of mitigating it. Read more in this article from Seed World.

To boil it down, a farm business or forest owner that grows crops or owns trees that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and return it to the soil can be paid by an electricity generator, manufacturing, or consumer product business that emits carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The transaction is a method of offsetting what we know of as “greenhouse gas emissions.” Read more in this article from the Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, KY).