Winter strikes the Midwest with winds that strip soil from dormant fields, stealing nutrients and hard-earned investment. Learn how to thwart this soil thief with carefully placed windbreaks.

Decades of genetic innovation meet farmer- and rancher-tested flexibility in alfalfa systems built for yield, quality and climate resilience.

Idaho’s barley fields became more than just a harvest site in 2024; they became a proving ground. For the first time, the state launched a barley yield contest, adding a competitive edge to the season and spotlighting the precise practices happening on local farms.

Nickel plays a critical role in nitrogen metabolism – especially in legumes and urea-fed crops.

Silage yields are soaring, but what is happening to the soil left behind?

Meet Nebraska’s 2025 Leopold Award winners and learn about the ethic driving their work.

We often like to use the easy button on so many things. In some instances, this works for a time, but what can the long-term results be and do we attempt to understand how nature interacts and responds to the practices we do in farming? Controlling weeds is one of those easy buttons that I feel we need to take a deeper look at and understand what the weeds are trying to tell us.

How are you going to assess pasture conditions going forward?

Soil surfactants when utilized correctly, can optimize soil moisture that would otherwise be limiting and leave the cool-season grasses vulnerable to heat stress. When coupled with well established “best management practices” for irrigation efficiency (i.e., proper maintenance, moisture monitoring, irrigation scheduling based on evapotranspiration and other precision irrigation practices), soil surfactants can be implemented to fully optimize irrigation water supply and improve efficiencies.

In order to plan how to fulfill the world's increasing need for food, research at Kansas State University is part of an international effort advocating for a new method to evaluate crop output potential and shortfalls.