Want to grow supertrees? Grab a handful of dark earth from the Amazon forest.

A type of soil called terra preta da Amazônia, or Amazon dark earth (ADE), promotes faster growth of trees and enhances their development in qualitative terms, according to an article published in the journal Frontiers in Soil Science.

This week, federal officials announced that they had found unapproved, genetically modified wheat growing on farms in Oregon. They noted that wheat of this type was developed by Monsanto to resist the herbicide Roundup during the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. According to officials, for unknown reasons, Monsanto suddenly “dropped the project” in 2005 before…

A greenhouse is great for starting off young seedlings or growing plants year-round. By utilizing transparent barriers around the greenhouse framework, solar radiation is allowed to enter the greenhouse (heating it up) while retaining heat and moisture needed for optimal plant growth. Here’s how to build a simple, and cheap, mini-greenhouse using an old shelving…

Any farmer will tell you that when it comes to efficiently growing food, compost is “black gold”. But some fear that fertilizer or compost made from human waste could be at risk of containing heavy metals, pathogens, or pharmaceuticals causing many environmentalists to consider it unsafe for enhancing plant growth. Others however, counter that contaminants…

Widely used in Europe and beginning to catch on in the United States, these robotic milking machines require very little human labor allowing a dairy farmer to operate a 350-cow dairy with only two human employees. The robotic milkers are revolutionizing the dairy industry. When the cow gets uncomfortable and decides it needs to be…