Corn belt farmland has lost a third of its carbon-rich soil

More than one-third of the Corn Belt in the Midwest—nearly 100 million acres—has completely lost its carbon-rich topsoil, according to University of Massachusetts Amherst research that indicates the U.S. Department of ...

The pluses and (mostly) minuses of biofuels

Speakers at last week’s AAAS meeting presented abundant evidence that tropical rainforest destruction has accelerated in recent years, at least in part because of the worldwide push to produce more biofuels.

Spying on Corn Rootworm Predators Nightlife

(PhysOrg.com) -- Agricultural Research Service (ARS) entomologist Jonathan G. Lundgren, while exploring corn fields at night, has found a very different group of predators than the ones that feed during the day. It turns ...

Studying Fertilizers to Cut Greenhouse Gases

(PhysOrg.com) -- Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have found that using alternative types of fertilizers can cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, at least in one part of the country. They are currently examining ...

Atrazine alternatives in sweet corn

Atrazine has been very good at killing weeds in corn fields for more than 50 years. But some of the properties that make it a successful herbicide, such as its persistence in the soil and ability to be transported in water, ...

Can sweet corn be grown using less atrazine?

Atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicides in North American corn production, but heated controversy remains over the 50-plus-year-old product. Several other herbicides are used in corn production, and a host of ...

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