February 15, 2012
Major Uses of Land in the United States, 2007 from ERS (Click on image below).
By Cynthia Nickerson, Robert Ebel, Allison Borchers, and Fernando Carriazo
Economic Information Bulletin No. (EIB-89) 67 pp, December 2011
The National Renewable Energy Lab has put together an interactive website showing best locations for a number of renewable energy sources, including biomass
Some excellent images of agricultural landscapes from space from Wired magazine. The contrast between anthropogenic and natural parts is striking.
From the Pollinator Partners in co-op with the Forest Service – a nicely illustrated publication on the basics of bee biology and an overview of major bee pollinators.
Check out a nice guide from Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada entitled “Shelterbelts – Design Guidelines for Farmyard, Field, Roadside, Livestock, Wildlife and Riparian Buffer Plantings on the Prairies.”
Everett Griner at Southeast AgNET tells us today how agriculture research is slowing down in the current economic/political environment. This is not good for agriculture. American farmers now compete in an ever-changing global economy. To compete, they must innovate, and innovation means taking risks – innovative practices and crops are by definition possible (likely?) to fail. Agricultural researchers take this risk for farmers (at least some of it). Our excellent extension professionals (extension agents and TSPs at federal, state and NGO’s) pass this knowledge – sans risk - to producers. Congress should consider this in budget decisions….
“…Guess who’s going to be affected by these decisions? YOU.” – E. Griner.
A new series of extension bulletins focused on native grass forage production is being produced here at UT’s Center for Native Grassland Management. The first four are now available (see below). Five others are planned with the first of those, Economic Implications of Growing Native Warm-Season Grasses for Forage in the Mid-South (SP731-E), becoming available in the next two months.
You can access them here: https://utextension.tennessee.edu/publications/Pages/animals.aspx. Please feel free to share a syou have need or opportunity.
