Colorant Manufacturers Help Brighten The World

By P.J. Heller When the Eastman Kodak Company introduced Kodachrome film in 1935, it changed the way the people worldwide looked at films and images, from a black-and-white view to a palette of vivid colors. A similar eye-popping experience occurred in 1954 with the introduction of color television. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the outdoors began taking on …

Study Proposed to Debunk Myth of Spontaneous Combustion Fires in Mulched Landscapes

By Bob LaGasse, MSC Executive Director For years, local fire marshals have been promoting the urban myth of spontaneous combustion of mulch in home gardens and landscape applications. In 2016 we saw a significant increase in the number of reports of local mulch fires, particularly in landscapes around businesses where the cause was attributed to improper disposal of smoking materials, …

Mulch & Soil Council Granted Long Awaited Guidelines Clarification for Checking Net Contents of Packaged Mulch

By Robert LaGasse, MSC Executive Director The National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) of the U.S. Department of Commerce is headquartered in Gaithersburg, MD, and helps coordinate industry and regulatory issues —including weights & measures — in interstate commerce. NIST handbooks provide guidelines for uniform standards and testing utilized by most state and local governments as well as private …

Congress Considers Water-Rights Protection Bill

By Veronica Harrison Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO) reintroduced the Water Rights Protection Act (WRPA) at a hearing of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans on May 18, 2017. The bill passed the House of Representatives in the 113th and 114th Congresses with bipartisan support, but it never received a vote in the Senate. WRPA would uphold …

EPA Moves to Scrap WOTUS Rule

By Kathy Hoekstra The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of the Army, and Army Corps of Engineers proposed a rule to rescind the controversial 2015 Waters of the United States rule. The Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule is closer to being removed from the Federal Register after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of the Army, and …

NC State University: Solving Problems and Creating Opportunities for the Soil and Mulch Industry

By Dr. Brian E. Jackson and Dr. Bill Fonteno An overview of the activities and programs happening in the Horticultural Substrates Laboratory (HSL) at NC State University (NCSU) Past and Ongoing Endeavors For more than 35 years, the Horticultural Substrates Laboratory (HSL) at NC State University (NCSU) has worked with the mulch and soil industry, solving problems in manufacturing, quality …

2016 Mulch Sales Were Strong in Most Areas of the U.S., with 2017 Looking Optimistic for Most

By Ken McEntee By most anecdotal accounts, mulch industry sales were up in 2016 compared to 2015. Survey responses and conversations with mulch producers from around the U.S. suggested that colored mulch continued to gain in popularity, while consumers increasingly are gravitating toward bagged products over bulk, primarily due to convenience of transporting and spreading the material. “I think sales …

Ohio Mulch Creates Renewable Wood Source Through Tree Farming

By P.J. Heller Jim Weber knows what it takes to manufacture quality mulch. So when he became concerned about energy companies competing for raw materials with his Ohio Mulch business, he took action. “We were concerned that the energy companies were starting to compete against us for raw materials because they were mixing wood fiber in with their coal as …

Industry Looks To The Sky With Drones

By P.J. Heller Soil, mulch and compost producers may soon be flying high, launching drones with sophisticated software to quickly and cost-effectively measure inventory, map their areas and improve safety. Used by both military and civilians, the latter primarily for aerial photography and videography, drones — or unmanned aerial vehicles or unmanned aircraft systems — are increasingly finding their way …