California Ag Network

Category: Technology

  • USDA’s Modernized Soil Lab Data Mart Website

    Understanding your specific soil and its dynamic properties, which can change over time due to human impacts, land management, and climate change, can be invaluable. The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), through the National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS), has a team of soil and data scientists who are bringing customers the best soil information using the newest technology through the Lab Data Mart.

    The newly updated Lab Data Mart website, also known as the National Cooperative Lab Characterization Database, brings valuable soil data to the public’s fingertips through a user-friendly, state-of-the-art interactive map. It includes data estimating soil properties such as organic carbon, clay content, calcium carbonate equivalent, and pH, which is beneficial in soil health assessments. Architects, educators, engineers, farmers, landowners, researchers, scientists, and anyone looking to learn more about their soil can access the latest data to make more informed decisions and reduce potential soil risks and hazards.

    The Lab Data Mart includes mid-infrared (MIR) soil spectroscopy data gathered during soil analysis at the NRCS’ Kellogg Soil Survey Laboratory, one of the largest libraries of such data in the world. MIR soil spectroscopy uses the interactions between soil matter and infrared radiation to estimate soil properties.

    The Lab Data Mart’s interactive map also links to a national database of soil characterization data, allowing users to locate soil samples and “pedons” analyzed in the lab. A pedon is the smallest unit of soil, containing all the soil horizons of a particular soil type. The customized data in the Lab Data Mart is downloadable to multiple applications and web services and is continuously updated as more sampled soil sites are added or re-visited.

    How Can the Lab Data Mart Help You?

    • Determining carbon credits or improving carbon sequestration: The data can help you determine how much carbon is currently in the top 12 inches of soil and decide whether you want to sequester more carbon and consider methods and management practices to do so.
    • Leasing or buying land: The data may help determine if your planned management practices will work; and if not, what could be the added cost to do things differently.  Understanding the mineralogy of your soil can help you determine if it requires soil amendments, a new tool or piece of equipment to accomplish your goals, or a change to what you farm or your tillage operation.
    • Taking a more systematic view of your land: Whether working with an NRCS conservation planner or on your own, the data helps you know more about your soil and ties into how you look at the whole ecological site.

    Who Can Help You Use Lab Data Mart and Help You Understand Your Data?

    NRCS State Soil Scientists and their staff, as well as technical service providers, can assist with obtaining the data in Lab Data Mart and understanding it. Contact NRCS at your local USDA Service Center for help and more information.

  • New Farm Bill May Incentivize On-Farm Ag Tech Innovations

    Just as the previous Farm Bill has supported farmers with cost-share programs like EQIP to improve their sustainability, the specialty crop sector of ag is pushing for the coming Farm Bill to support on-farm ag tech innovations in a similar way.  Watch this brief interview with California Fresh Fruit Association President Ian LeMay to learn more.

    Please thank this video’s sponsor Ranch Systems for their industry support.

  • USDA Addresses Western Water Challenges with $1.5 Million in CA’s Central Valley

    As part of the Biden Administration’s commitment to making Western communities more resilient to the impacts of drought and climate change, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced new investments and strategies to help farmers and ranchers conserve water, address climate change and build drought resilience in the West, supported in part by funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

    The Western Water and Working Lands Framework for Conservation Action is a comprehensive, multi-state strategy under USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to address key water and land management challenges across 17 Western States. This is the latest NRCS-issued Framework for Conservation Action, all of which provide direction, support and coordination to address resource concerns and threats across state boundaries and leverage new scientific tools to guide strategic program implementation on the ground. The Framework includes guidelines for identifying vulnerable agricultural landscapes and 13 strategies to help NRCS state leaders, water resource managers, and producers respond to priority challenges.

    Guided by this new framework, the WaterSMART Initiative will invest $25 million in three new priority areas and 37 existing priority areas, assisting communities and producers in the West.

    “Climate change is taking an enormous toll on farmers and ranchers in the West. Record breaking drought and exhausted water supplies are hurting agricultural operations and entire communities,” said NRCS Chief Terry Cosby. “WaterSMART investments are being directed where they can have the most impact, and the new Western Water and Working Lands Framework for Conservation Action lays the foundation for helping producers and communities address pressing climate challenges and build resiliency for the future. Complemented by investments from the Inflation Reduction Act, USDA is utilizing this framework and all available tools to deliver assistance that the severity of the water supply challenges in the West demand.”

    NRCS leveraged stakeholder feedback from a public listening session, input from the field and the latest scientific data to shape and inform the framework.

    NRCS Western Water and Working Lands Framework for Conservation Action

    Agricultural producers steward more than two thirds of the nation’s land resources. Water flows through these lands into reservoirs that supply communities with water. In many areas of the dry West, producers are struggling to irrigate their crops due to inadequate precipitation. Water supply in these areas is impacted by drought, increasing demand, and climate change.

    NRCS has identified six major water and working land management challenges resulting from threats to water supply in the West:

    1. Forecasting water supply.
    2. Sustaining agricultural productivity.
    3. Protecting groundwater availability.
    4. Protecting surface water availability.
    5. Managing and restoring rangelands and forestlands.
    6. Responding to disruptions from catastrophic events.

    For each of these major management challenges, opportunities exist to help individuals, entities and communities better manage water and working lands, conserve natural resources and build resilience to drought and climate change. Strategies include:

    1. Improve reliability of water supply forecasts.
    2. Improve soil moisture and irrigation water management.
    3. Improve water and nutrient management in crop fields and pastures.
    4. Modernize water infrastructure.
    5. Improve community water supply by completing watershed projects.
    6. Increase reuse of wastewater for agriculture and conservation.
    7. Prolong aquifer life.
    8. Complete managed aquifer recharge projects.
    9. Reduce surface water withdrawals.
    10. Install conservation systems that protect water quality.
    11. Restore and protect streams and wetlands.
    12. Manage and restore rangelands and forestlands.
    13. Increase resilience during disaster recovery.

    NRCS will use this framework to set comparable goals for effective program delivery and coordinate and track progress on helping individuals, entities and communities across the West address their management, conservation and resiliency needs.

    From 2020 to 2022, more than $410 million of annual conservation assistance NRCS provided to producers helped address drought in the West. Now, with the new Western Water and Working Lands Framework for Conservation Action in place, NRCS can further leverage the tools and coordination to build upon these investments and expand support by advancing innovative targeting at the state, local and regional levels, while also utilizing additional funds from the Inflation Reduction Act that advance both climate mitigation and Western water priorities.

    WaterSMART Initiative

    The $25 million investment in three new priority areas and 37 existing priority areas in the West is the result of a collaboration with NRCS and the Department of Interior’s (DOI) WaterSMART Initiative to help farmers and ranchers conserve water and build drought resilience in their communities. These investments complement projects led by irrigation districts, water suppliers and other organizations receiving WaterSMART program funds from the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation. NRCS works with the Bureau of Reclamation to coordinate investments in the same community to accelerate water conservation and drought resilience and make a bigger impact where it is most needed.

    The three new priority areas include:

    • California: Madera Irrigation District Area (Funding amount: $1.5 million)
    • Hawaii: Kohala Watershed Partnership Area (Funding amount: $345,000)
    • Washington: Quincy Columbia Basin Irrigation District West Canal Area (Funding amount: $1.8 million)

    Today’s WaterSMART announcements compliment ongoing efforts across the Biden-Harris Administration to increase water conservation and address the historic drought conditions in the West. This week, the Department of Interior Bureau of Reclamation also announced $728 million in new investments for water conservation measures in the West.

    Inflation Reduction Act and Climate-Smart Practices

    Assistance delivered through the Western Water and Working Lands Framework for Conservation Action and the WaterSMART Initiative also help build resilience to climate-change impacts such as droughts, wildfires and floods. Many of the resilience-focused activities and systems are also Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry mitigation activities, which support carbon sequestration or greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Climate-smart mitigation activities are supported by the additional investments available from the Inflation Reduction Act.

    The Inflation Reduction Act is supporting investments in these and other mitigation activities in concert with NRCS’s ongoing work to help producers and communities improve their operations and protect our natural resources in the face of global challenges. NRCS also announced today $850 million in fiscal year 2023 funding opportunities for producers in Western states and across the nation who want to participate in NRCS conservation programs and adopt climate-smart practices. This is part of a $19.5 billion investment through the Inflation Reduction Act for climate smart agriculture.

    More Information

    Farmers, ranchers, irrigation districts, groundwater management entities, municipalities, tribes and others across the West are working together to secure clean and available water supplies, healthy soils, resilient landscapes and thriving agricultural communities, now and in the future. NRCS is working to assist them and accelerate voluntary conservation of water and working lands resources. Visit the NRCS website for more information on the WaterSMART Initiative and to read the Western Water and Working Lands Framework for Conservation Action.

  • Growing Food Under Solar Panels with Less Water

    People are increasingly trying to grow both food and clean energy on the same land to help meet the challenges of climate change, drought and a growing global population that just topped 8 billion. This effort includes agrivoltaics, in which crops are grown under the shade of solar panels, ideally with less water.

    Now scientists from the University of California, Davis, are investigating how to better harvest the sun — and its optimal light spectrum — to make agrivoltaic systems more efficient in arid agricultural regions like California. Their study, published in Earth’s Future, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, found that the red part of the light spectrum is more efficient for growing plants, while the blue part of the spectrum is better used for solar production.

    A Door Opener

    The study’s results could help guide global interest in agrivoltaics and identify potential applications for those systems.

    “This paper is a door opener for all sorts of technological advancements,” said corresponding author Majdi Abou Najm, an associate professor at the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources and a fellow at the UC Davis Institute of the Environment. He conducted the study with first author Matteo Camporese of the University of Padova in Italy, who came to UC Davis as a Fulbright visiting scholar. “Today’s solar panels take all the light and try to make the best of it. But what if a new generation of photovoltaics could take the blue light for clean energy and pass the red light onto the crops, where it is most efficient for photosynthesis?”

    For the study, the scientists developed a photosynthesis and transpiration model to account for different light spectra. The model reproduced the response of various plants, including lettuce, basil and strawberry, to different light spectra in controlled lab conditions. A sensitivity analysis suggested the blue part of the spectrum is best filtered out to produce solar energy while the red spectrum can be optimized to grow food.

    This work was further tested this past summer on tomato plants at UC Davis agricultural research fields in collaboration with UC Davis Assistant Professor Andre Daccache from the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering.

    Guiding Light

    In an era of shrinking viable land, understanding how plants respond to different light spectra is a key step toward designing systems that balance sustainable land management with water use and food production, the study noted.

    “We cannot feed 2 billion more people in 30 years by being just a little more water-efficient and continuing as we do,” Abou Najm said. “We need something transformative, not incremental. If we treat the sun as a resource, we can work with shade and generate electricity while producing crops underneath. Kilowatt hours become a secondary crop you can harvest.”

    The study was funded by a U.S. Department of State Fulbright Research Scholarship, UC Davis and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. — By Kat Kerlin, UC Davis

  • Study Shows Increased Production from Dairies Converting to Robotic Milking Systems

    A recent multi-university collaborative study is showing consistent increases in milk production for dairies converting to robotic milking systems across the nation.  Watch this brief interview with Dairy Management Specialist Camila Lage from Cornell Cooperative Extension as she explains.  Read more about it in California Dairy Magazine.

    Please thank this video’s sponsor Clean Energy for their industry support.

  • California Dairy Producer Invests in Robotic Milking System

    While automation is not a cheap investment, Travis Hooker and his father are invested in the future of the California dairy industry, and automating their milking system is one way they working to meet today’s challenges.  Watch this brief interview with Travis on how this new system is panning out on his family dairy in Chowchilla, CA.  Read more in California Dairy Magazine.

    Please thank this video’s sponsor Clean Energy for their industry support.

  • Fully Automated Wine Grape Vineyard Pruning Becomes More Economical

    There is not always sufficient time and labor to accomplish all the tasks that need to be taken care of in the vineyard.  Fortunately researchers and allied industry stakeholders have collaborated and innovated to provide an economical way for the full automation of winter pruning in wine grape vineyards.  Watch this brief video with Kaan Kurtural from UC Davis as he explains, and read more about it in American Vineyard Magazine.

    Please thank this video’s sponsor Suterra for their industry support.

  • $502 Million for High-Speed Internet in Rural Communities

    U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack recently announced that the Department is awarding $502 million in loans and grants (PDF, 221 KB) to provide high-speed internet access for rural residents and businesses in 20 states — including California. The funding is part of the Biden Administration’s commitment to investing in rural infrastructure and providing reliable, affordable, high-speed internet for all. USDA is making the investments through the third funding round of the ReConnect Program. The Department will make additional investments for rural high-speed internet in the coming months, including funding from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which provides a historic $65 billion investment to expand affordable, high-speed internet to all communities across the U.S.

    “President Biden’s commitment to high-speed internet in rural communities is foundational to ensuring that the nation’s economy continues to expand from the bottom up and the middle out,” Vilsack said. “High-speed internet will improve the rural economy. It will help rural businesses grow and get access to new markets. It will help rural residents get access to more and better health care and educational opportunities. USDA knows rural America is America’s backbone, and prosperity here means prosperity for all.”

    USDA is making 32 awards in Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. Many of the awards will help rural people and businesses on Tribal lands and people in socially vulnerable communities.

    USDA has announced $858 million in the third round of ReConnect funding so far and plans to make more investment announcements under this program in the coming weeks. This announcement follows the Department’s July 28 announcement that it has invested $356 million through the ReConnect Program to help very rural residents and businesses in 11 states (PDF, 192 KB) gain access to high-speed internet.

    Background: ReConnect Program

    To be eligible for ReConnect Program funding, an applicant must serve an area where high-speed internet service speeds are lower than 100 megabits per second (Mbps) (download) and 20 Mbps (upload). The applicant must also commit to building facilities capable of providing high-speed internet service at speeds of 100 Mbps (download and upload) to every location in its proposed service area.

    To learn more about investment resources for rural areas, visit www.rd.usda.gov or contact the nearest USDA Rural Development state office.

    Background: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

    President Biden forged consensus and compromise between Democrats, Republicans and Independents to demonstrate our democracy can deliver big wins for the American people. After decades of talk on rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure, President Biden delivered the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – a historic investment in America that will change people’s lives for the better and get America moving again.

    The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $65 billion to ensure every American has access to affordable, reliable high-speed internet through a historic investment in broadband infrastructure deployment. The legislation also lowers costs for internet service and helps close the digital divide, so that more Americans can take full advantage of the opportunities provided by internet access.

    USDA Rural Development provides loans and grants to help expand economic opportunities, create jobs and improve the quality of life for millions of Americans in rural areas. This assistance supports infrastructure improvements; business development; housing; community facilities such as schools, public safety and health care; and high-speed internet access in rural, tribal and high-poverty areas. For more information, visit www.rd.usda.gov.

  • Almond Case Study Tests New ROI Calculator

    Many almond growers have heard their peers, as well as others with interest in improving pollinator habitat and soil health, endorse the planting of cover crops to accomplish those goals.

    Those same growers may have wondered if money spent on seeds and labor as well as the cost of time to manage cover crops truly pay off. Can the economic benefit of cover crops accurately be measured and, if so, what is the return on that investment (ROI)?

    The Almond Board of California (ABC) – in an effort to directly address questions about the ROI of cover crops – recently completed a case study of one orchard in Stanislaus County where cover crops have been planted for a decade. The case study relied on a calculator system developed by the American Farmland Trust.

    Michael Roots, ABC’s specialist for field outreach and education, worked with grower Christine Gemperle to evaluate the ROI of cover crops on 20 acres of her 40-acre orchard near Ceres. The result was an easy-to-read two-page document now available for other growers to review.

    A combination of published machinery and material cost estimates and data supplied by Gemperle was used to estimate the cost of operations, on average, before and after cover crops were planted. The analysis was limited to only those income and cost variables affected by cover crop adoption.

    The bottom line? Gemperle’s net income per acre grew by $499 annually, for a total of $9,976 for the 20 acres. That works out to an ROI of 459% based on the $1,516 average cost of seeds plus the value of her time ($655) each year to fine tune the process.

    Gemperle’s trees were 9 years old when she first planted cover crops in 2012. Thanks to meticulously kept records, she credits cover crops for increasing yield by about 8% while, at the same time, reducing her pesticide and herbicide costs.

    Her strategy – which has evolved through the years – is relatively simple. She plants cover crops in every other row, usually by early October. She waters those seeds during her last post-harvest irrigation of the fall. She uses the “clean” rows – those without cover crop seeds – to remove mummy nuts and prune. Once those tasks are finished, she plants her other cover crop seeds down those rows as well, usually by early December.

    In addition to creating an inviting habitat for honeybees and other natural pollinators, Roots said Gemperle has reduced weed populations, improved soil moisture retention and reduced pesticide applications. She’s also saved money on labor.

    “The diversity of weeds she’s seen has decreased so a lot of the hard-to-kill weeds have disappeared as the cover crop has taken over. She doesn’t have to spray as often and she doesn’t have to use as much material,” Roots explained. “She also doesn’t spray in May for mites because of all the beneficial insects that her cover crops host.”

    Gemperle also has observed that her trees are more resilient, less prone to leaf drop and less prone to wilting during harvest.

    “She’s found a good way to be cost-effective and get the job done in an economic manner. Especially since she’s doing all the work herself,” Roots said.

    Roots added reaching out to the Almond Board or American Farmland Trust to participate in a case study can be a good way for a grower interested in determining the ROI of their existing, or potential future, cover crops. It can be used to determine the ROI of their own orchards as each situation is likely to be unique.

    “Everybody implements cover crops a little differently,” he said.

    Growers interested in the American Farmland Trust’s soil health calculator can learn more at the organization’s website. — By the Almond Board of California

  • Fresno State Researchers Speed Up Grape Composition/Maturity Monitoring Process

    Monitoring the progress of your grape composition and timing harvest just right when you have thousands of acres, several varieties and diverse growing conditions can be difficult to keep up with.  Well, the Fresno State Department of Viticulture & Enology has been working with industry collaborators on speeding up with process with greater accuracy.  Watch this brief video with Luca Brillante and Eve Laroche-Pinel to find out how they’re doing it, and read more about it in American Vineyard Magazine.

    Please thank this video’s sponsor Suterra for their industry support.