High demand for organic dairy and meat in recent years has increased the need for organic forage. Organic growers may consider incorporating an annual summer forage crop into their crop rotation. This study assessed the impacts of fresh dairy manure and composted dairy manure on short-term N mineralization, microbial biomass, and forage crop N uptake/yield in a summer teff production system.

Developed by the USDA National Organic Program, this free toolkit gives retailers ready-to-use in-store and digital graphics — shelf tags, aisle banners, freezer stickers, and social media banners — to help consumers understand and trust the USDA organic label. The toolkit also includes retailer guidance on proper seal usage and organic integrity.

Join Dr. John Holman and Dr. Augustine Obour, Professors at Kansas State University, for a discussion about the advantages and challenges of grazing cover crops in the Great Plains. Learn about how incorporating cover crops and livestock can increase profitability, how cover crops can help mitigate forage shortages, and how adjust cover cropping strategy depending on soil moisture.

This webinar, Part 2 of a two-part series “No-Tilling Organic Corn into Living Alfalfa,” presents the insights and lessons learned by Ben Miller, Asset Manager for Clear Frontier Ag Management, from over a decade of experience planting corn directly into living alfalfa stands in organic and regenerative systems.

This Colorado State University Extension factsheet explores biochar's growing applications across the state, from forest management and carbon sequestration to agriculture. While a commercial market is developing, adoption remains limited. Success depends on feedstock costs, carbon credit markets, and demand — with specialty crops and home gardeners currently driving growth.

Organic agricultural systems, which rely upon a greater understanding and management of complex, natural biological and biogeochemical processes, may not be accurately evaluated within existing GHG emission tools, which were developed to monitor emissions from conventional systems. This study presents a review and synthesis of recent efforts to improve two well-established GHG decision support tools (COMET-Farm and the Cool Farm Tool) to better represent organic management scenarios.

The UC SAREP cover crop database, first released in 1999, provides detailed information on over 40 cover crop species commonly grown in California. The database helps growers understand each species' unique characteristics, including planting requirements, management details, nutrient contributions, and pest interactions, enabling informed decisions about cover crop integration.

Join Dr. Hoyoung Kwon, Environmental Analyst at the Argonne National Laboratory, for a discussion about how life cycle analyses (LCAs) can be used to identify major agricultural greenhouse gas contributors and to develop ways of reducing the agriculture sector’s contribution to the climate crisis.

This webinar, produced by the Foundation for Agricultural and Rural Resources Management and Sustainability (FARRMS), provides an overview of recent applied organic research from North Dakota State University’s Carrington Research Extension Center and other programs, while offering guidance on starting independent research trials, best practices for collaborating with researchers, and grant opportunities for funding resources.

Published by the Kansas Rural Center and Kansas State University, this guide helps specialty crop growers use cover crops to build soil health, reduce erosion, manage weeds, and improve farm resilience. It covers soil health principles, cover crop selection and management, and termination practices — illustrated with profiles of three Kansas growers.

Creeping perennial weed species, including Canada thistle and field bindweed, are among the most difficult weeds to manage in organic agricultural systems due to their persistence, proliferation, and detrimental impacts to crop yields. Aside from frequent tillage, cover cropping (often with alfalfa) is a common strategy to manage creeping perennial weeds. This study assessed the weed suppressive ability of three highly diverse four-year cropping systems as potential alternatives to intensive tillage and alfalfa cover cropping.

The Cover Crop Decision Tool, created by the Midwest Cover Crops Council, is an online tool designed to help farmers in the Midwest region of the U.S. select cover crops suitable to their climatic conditions and that will help them accomplish specific goals, including optimizing soil nitrogen, preventing erosion, providing suitable livestock forage, etc.