Saw a thoughtful thread about AI, don't want to QT or argue. But. The biggest rage factor with LLMs is the people who, because genAI is transformative for coding, think it's transformative for everything else, because they devalue every other form of work and labor and knowledge.
It has left agricultural science stuck in-between, at least for anyone who is interested in being applied. The more basic scientists have (somewhat) migrated here and anyone that is farmer-facing -is either on still Twitter or just looking for other avenues.
Perhaps you received a mysterious noreply email asking you to evaluate some publications 'for novelty'. Looked kinda dubious? Yup, that's the one.
So what's up with this 'metascience novelty indicators challenge'? 🧵
“Everybody’s got something to hide except for me and my monkey” -The Beatles
#AshaniThilakarathne 's latest publication showing long-term, diversified #croprotations improve #soilhealth and help soybeans better withstand extreme #drought, reducing water stress and yield losses, compared to conventional systems. 🌱🫘💦
🔗https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2025.110180
Ahhh yes, “frictionless” tech
Never thought a science journal could have a clever, relevant, and on-topic holiday message, but here we are! 🤓
It’s good to see papers start to address LLMs as structural plagiarism — provenance, more hidden than the original words or training data. www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Nobody is even willing to give Papyrus a chance these days 😢
Agricultural soil carbon sequestration gets a lot of attention but let’s not forget that the best way to keep carbon in soils is to stop further expansion of agriculture into natural ecosystems.
#WorldSoilDay
Regenerative agriculture is mostly overhyped as a climate solution. But in Brazil, I saw some regenerative grazing practices produce higher beef yields, which meant more money for the rancher and less eating of the earth.
Development vs climate action is a false choice.
In the agriculture sector, there are many actions that reduce climate pollution AND help farmers adapt to a changing climate.
An underappreciated one is helping smallholders sustainably boost productivity, reducing ag land expansion & deforestation.
Didn’t realize Don Quixote worked at CDC now…
Whatever your research question, I can assure you it is *NOT* answered by a combination of linear mixed models, random forest, and structural equation models.
Whatever your research question, I can assure you it is *NOT* answered by a combination of linear mixed models, random forest, and structural equation models.
We've somehow settled into an equilibrium wherein *all* the social media sites suck & are unbearable.
A photograph of a random forest in the Canadian boreal forest
Random forest
PNAS – Profile of Johannes Lehmann, Cornell University, University of Bayreuth, Germany. National Academy of Sciences Member.
PNAS highlights Johannes Lehmann’s pioneering soil science—from revealing the secrets of Amazonian dark earths to advancing biochar for fertility and climate solutions. His work is reshaping sustainable agriculture. Read the PNAS Profile: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
You mean to tell me that a model trained on average quality code is producing code that is of average quality? I thought we could spin straw into gold!
WE ARE THE ALGORITHM
Reducing Nitrogen Losses in US Row-Crop Agriculture: Challenges, Solutions, and Policy Pathways Mike Badzmierowski Executive Summary Highlights • Nitrogen is essential for crop production, but its excessive use leads to significant air- and water-borne environmental losses. Nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas (GHG) 273 times more potent than carbon dioxide and the current leading contributor to ozone depletion, is released particularly from over-applied nitrogen. The costs of agricultural nitrogen pollution in the United States likely surpass US$200 billion, primarily due to its impact on air and water quality. • The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suggests that half of US agricultural GHG emissions are nitrous oxide (EPA 2024). New measurements suggest EPA models underestimate emissions, particularly as rising temperatures may increase emission rates. • Uniform application rates are inefficient due to variability within fields. Reduced nitrogen rate applications through precision nitrogen manage-ment, leveraging on-farm trials, and improved irrigation are effective strategies for reducing nitrogen losses and fertilizer waste, thereby enhancing farmer profitability. Nitrification inhibitors are likely to be site- and time-dependent regarding their nitrogen loss potential. • Implementing a "National Nitrogen Initiative" could help improve fertilizer use and boost farmer profitability. With just 24 percent of cropland contributing 63 percent of the nation's nitrogen surplus (Roy et al. 2021), the focus should start in "hotspot regions."
Check out our team’s new paper about reducing nitrogen losses in US row-crop agriculture, by @mikebadzmierowski.bsky.social.
Nitrogen is essential for crop production, but its overuse reduces air and water quality and emits potent GHGs. This paper examines solutions.
www.wri.org/research/red...
Basically, the argument “we don’t need as much P inputs because we seldom see a yield response”, is meaningfully different than “we don’t need as much P inputs because we defined a response range and most soils are below that” in terms of the way it gets put into practice.
Yeah, I saw similar things in some of my PhD work: no yield response even after 12 years of no P. My concern is mostly about being right for the wrong reasons, since that intervening step is where decision making occurs
acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2...
I haven’t had time to fully digest here, but isn’t another interpretation here that Olsen P is just a bad proxy for crop P response? The huge drop in R2 between initial model to LOOCV (from 0.61 to 0.42) doesn’t inspire confidence in the subsequent analysis of fertilizer P needs in Europe.
I didn’t realize you were taking it over - very cool! I use the package all the time, so I appreciate your work on maintaining it 😊
📣We are hiring a PhD candidate to work on modeling soil processes in regenerative agriculture 🌱
If you have experience in process-based modeling and a background in agriculture, we invite you to apply.
Deadline, September 30, 2025.
More info here:
lnkd.in/eGFJktsN
Oh and get a better calorie conversion from field to human stomach, ie food waste and livestock production.
The data is just SO clear: the best things we can do for balancing ecosystem integrity and maintaining agricultural production is to avoid future land use change and intensify on current land.
Land sparing >>> land sharing.
In food journalism, the mere mention of not eating meat is some highly suspect bias whereby we might secretly be animal rights activists meanwhile no one questions the widespread preference for small + local ag. It’s been that way since I’ve been a journalist.
