USDA researchers say that winter rye crops seeded in no-till corn-soybean systems have the potential to reduce annual nitrate loss in field drainage by about 18 pounds per acre.

New enrollments for the Conservation Stewardship Program will be accepted through Feb. 27, 2015. The program is designed to reward farmers, ranchers and foresters for maintaining existing conservation, and also the adoption of additional conservation measures.

Tillage practices that conserve moisture, plants that use water more efficiently and soil with more organic matter have produced higher yields even in dry conditions, according to South Dakota State University soil scientist David Clay.

If a recent study is any indication, getting more crop production from every inch of water is going to become even more important in the near future.The Institution of Chemical Engineers recently released a report describing the amount of hidden water used in food and drink production, estimated at up to 1.8 million liters per person each year — equivalent an Olympic-size swimming pool.

Many growers have taken out their grassed waterways after tiling their fields, but South Dakota State University Extension says this doesn't prevent all soil erosion.

UC Davis and University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers have described part of the network of genetic controls that allows a plant to grow for the first time.

A team of researchers led by Carnegie Institution for Science's Anna Michalak and Yuntao Zhou has shown that the widespread drought in 2012 was associated with Lake Erie's largest dead zone since the mid-1980s.