South Dakota State University is looking at how fall cover crops can provide nutrient-rich winter forage and help lure hungry deer away from hay and other stored livestock feed.

The term soil health is used interchangeably with soil quality, but in this article I prefer the use of soil health because it is a more appropriate term in defining soil functions as a living and dynamic natural system. Soil health is a condition, or status, of the soil at a certain place and in a specific environment as compared to a certain reference or benchmark condition.

Researchers report in a new study that several bird species some of them relatively rare are making extensive use of soybean fields in Illinois. The team found significantly more birds and a greater diversity of bird species nesting, roosting and feeding in no-till soybean fields than in tilled fields.

Iowa farmer Seth Watkins is blazing the trail with a new conservation practice to reduce soil loss and improve water quality: seeding strips of native prairie into cropland on his farm.

$50 million will spent over three years in conservation assistance to farmers and ranchers in priority areas along seven major rivers in five states that drain into the Gulf.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the next general signup for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) will begin on March 14, 2011, and continue through April 15, 2011.

Environmental conservation groups sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday to force it to tighten regulation of pesticide use, arguing that the agency was not consulting wildlife officials.