Tag: #soil-health — 9 segments on Living on Earth
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August 22, 2025:
Reforesting a Gravel Mine
At a former gravel mine in northwestern Pennsylvania, nonprofits are working to plant 70,000 trees as part of a larger project to reforest thousands of acres of degraded mine land in the region. The Allegheny Front’s Kara Holsopple reports on how they’re experimenting with fungi and biochar to help restore degraded soil and give the saplings a head start.
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August 15, 2025:
Sounds of Soil
Sounds like the overlapping songs of birds can speak volumes about the biodiversity in an ecosystem, and now scientists are looking to use the tiny sounds made by earthworms, ants, and voles to study the health of soils. Ecologist Carlos Abrahams joins Host Aynsley O’Neill to explain why more varied sounds appear to indicate healthier soils, and the potential applications of listening for these sounds in the earth.
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May 30, 2025:
Reforesting a Gravel Mine
At a former gravel mine in northwestern Pennsylvania, nonprofits are working to plant 70,000 trees as part of a larger project to reforest thousands of acres of degraded mine land in the region. The Allegheny Front’s Kara Holsopple reports on how they’re experimenting with fungi and biochar to help restore degraded soil and give the saplings a head start.
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May 24, 2024:
Sounds of Soil
Sounds like the overlapping songs of birds can speak volumes about the biodiversity in an ecosystem, and now scientists are looking to use the tiny sounds made by earthworms, ants, and voles to study the health of soils. Ecologist Carlos Abrahams joins Host Aynsley O’Neill to explain why more varied sounds appear to indicate healthier soils, and the potential applications of listening for these sounds in the earth.
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May 10, 2024:
From the History Books
Living on Earth contributor Peter Dykstra joins Host Aynsley O’Neill for a trip back in time to a massive dust storm that covered the United States’ eastern seaboard in the 1930s, as well as the start of the Galapagos National Park in Ecuador.
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February 23, 2024:
Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden
Over seven years poet Camille Dungy gradually transformed her sterile lawn in white Fort Collins, Colorado into a pollinator haven teeming with native plants and the wildlife they attract. Her book Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden recounts that journey alongside a world in turmoil amid the coronavirus pandemic, police violence and wildfires. Camille Dungy joined Host Steve Curwood to talk about how all her hard work amending hard clay soil has yielded gifts of joy as well as metaphors.
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September 22, 2023:
Regenerative Farming Powered by Microbes
Microorganisms in soil generate carbon-rich soil and help plants grow, but too often our food comes from industrial farms that limit beneficial microbes by depleting the soil with tillage and toxic chemicals. Farmer and author Dorn Cox joins Host Steve Curwood to describe his collaborative high-tech vision of harnessing the power of microbes outlined in his book The Great Regeneration: Ecological Agriculture, Open-Source Technology, and a Radical Vision of Hope.
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April 07, 2023:
The Next Event in the Living on Earth Book Club
In "Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden," poet and scholar Camille T. Dungy recounts the seven-year odyssey to diversify her garden in the predominately white community of Fort Collins, Colorado. The Living on Earth Book Club, Soul Fire Farm, Orion Magazine and UMass Boston School for the Environment proudly present this free, live, virtual conversation between author Camille Dungy and Host Steve Curwood, with a special introduction by Soul Fire Farm co-founder Leah Penniman.
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February 10, 2023:
Black History: George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver was born into slavery but went on to become a famous agronomist and helped poor people in the South improve their lives and soils by planting peanuts and other legumes. This week, he comes back from the past in the form of actor and playwright Paxton Williams. As “George Washington Carver” Williams talks to host Steve Curwood about the future of modern-day agriculture and intersections between racial dynamics and agricultural development.
