Implementing novel management practices in dairy farming, one of the commonwealth's major agricultural industries, could help alleviate a large source of both nutrient pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, according to a multidisciplinary team led by researchers at Penn State. Those practices include continuous cover—keeping fields covered with vegetation year-round—and anaerobic digestion—a microbial process that converts manure and plant organic matter, called biomass, into biogas—a combustible fuel consisting mostly of methane.
