WSU Research Cultivates Seeds of Opportunity for PNW Farmers The grain-like seed crop quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) is growing in popularity and very likely will soon be grown more widely in the Pacific Northwest, thanks to a $1.6 million USDA grant recently awarded to a team of Washington State University researchers. Quinoa is in high demand […]
Comprehensive Effort to Create Sustainable Fertilizers Phosphorus recycled from human and animal waste for plant fertilizer could ease demand for the dwindling, increasingly expensive rock-mined element. Scientists at WSU have found plants flourish with struvite, a waste ingredient composed of magnesium, nitrogen, and phosphorous. Teamed with Multiform Harvest, a Seattle phosphorous recovery company, the researchers […]
WSU Scientists Unearth Potential of Climate Friendly Farming and Carbon Sequestration Farm management practices such as crop rotation and tillage can provide a real—though modest—contribution to carbon sequestration in the Pacific Northwest. This is the conclusion suggested by two recently published studies by WSU researchers in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences and the […]
Grant Supports Sustainable, Urban Ag Education in Puget Sound and Beyond As “green-collar” jobs continue to emerge, a three-year, $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation brings together Washington State University and several Puget Sound community colleges to support undergraduate students interested in pursuing educational opportunities in sustainable agriculture and working on small urban farms. […]
Celebrating 20 Years of Science-based Solutions for Sustainability From compost trials in orchards in the early ’90s to recent research on bean varieties and microbial inoculates that sustain agriculture in Africa’s ancient soils, WSU’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources has been on the cutting edge of science in the service of a sustainable […]
New WSU Program Tackles Challenge of Developing Science-based Tools to Measure Sustainability in Ag and Food Systems A new WSU program has been charged with developing science-based tools to measure the sustainability of food production systems. The program, called “Measure to Manage: Food and Farm Diagnostics for Sustainability and Health,” or M2M, just received a […]
Washington State Juice Grape Producers to Rate Sustainability through WSU Report Card WSU researchers are developing an assessment tool to help juice grape growers determine the sustainability of their operations. The “Washington State Juice Grape Sustainability Report Card” is the first step toward statewide efforts to define and support sustainable growing practices on more than […]
Soil Testing Guide for Vegetable Farmers Published by WSU WSU Extension Publications has just released “Soil Testing: A Guide for Farms with Diverse Vegetable Crops.” The new fact sheet presents a comprehensive, yet affordable, procedure for implementing an annual soil-testing program for farms with diverse vegetable crops. The reader will learn when to sample, where […]
WSU Organic Ag Education and Research Scores a Perfect 8 A recent assessment of educational and research programs in organic agriculture in the U.S. puts WSU in the top six schools in the nation. In fact, WSU outranks every other program in the country, because WSU is still the only university to offer a four-year, […]
Flight of the Alkali Bee Can a bee learn to fly over, instead of across, a busy highway? WSU entomologist Douglas Walsh is working with the Washington State Department of Transportation to find out. Walsh will study alkali bees and their flight around a stretch of U.S. Highway 12 in central Washington to help WSDOT […]