Back when I did more training on how to assess information on the Internet, I would often use an example from a Minnesota university that was a website that featured a mythical town outside of Mankato where, due to geological anomalies, the weather never went below 70 degrees. It got a lot of attention in 1996 as a great example of “not everything you read online it true.” So, I was tickled to see that University of Minnesota Extension has taken up a similar project in the new era of AI. Ag Week reports…

A YouTube video titled “Scientists Tested 41 Cover Crop Mixes for 6 Years” claims a University of Minnesota research team ran a six-season trial and found one three-species cover crop mix that outperformed every other combination by 210%. The 49-minute video, posted May 6 by a channel called Soil & Centuries, says the team tracked nitrogen transfer rates, mycorrhizal network density and weed suppression across hundreds of thousands of data points.

None of it happened. The study does not exist.

University of Minnesota Extension educators said the video is artificial intelligence “slop” — fabricated content built to draw clicks and advertising revenue. They have reported it, and commented on it, but it’s still up. As of mid-July, the video had more than 36,000 views. It had roughly 11,000 when Extension educators first learned of it.

Here’s the video: