Solving the irrigation puzzle in the Pacific Northwest

How much carbon is really stored beneath your feet? This article explains how soil scientists measure and calculate soil carbon stocks, revealing why factors like soil depth, texture, and land use can dramatically influence carbon storage—and why perennial pastures often hold an advantage over cropland.

This article is part of the series titled, “Soil Carbon in the Carolinas.” It is adapted from a series that originally was published in The Carolina Cattle Connection. While regional soils, climate, and farm data from North and South Carolina are used as primary examples, readers outside the Carolinas will still find it highly useful, especially for understanding soil health, interpreting soil carbon data, and advising on management practices that build resilience.

Earn 0.5 CEUs in Soil & Water Management by reading this article and taking the quiz.

As the organic sector continues its 7% annual growth, growers are facing increasingly complex regulatory and agronomic hurdles. The CCA Organic Specialty certification is designed to give you the specific expertise needed to lead in this high-demand market.

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What are mean separation values, and how can Certified Crop Advisers (CCAs) use them? Being able to interpret mean separation techniques such as least significant difference (LSD), Tukey’s honestly significant difference (HSD), and Duncan’s test can help CCAs better understand if the yield difference between different treatments or different varieties is true or more likely attributed to chance.

In this video, which is part of the new “CCA Essentials” series, Dr. Alex Lindsey of The Ohio State University shows how LSD values and other statistical tools can be used to determine with a certain level of confidence if the difference between treatments is significant.

This video corresponds to the Crop Management Performance Objective: Understand how to use mean separation techniques such as least significant difference (LSD) values to interpret differences among varieties or hybrids.