RegenPGC grad students honored

Two RegenPGC graduate students from the University of Kentucky, Kiera Searcy and Hallie Sandeen, won first and second place in the 2023 North Central Weed Science Society Student Video Competition. RegenPGC Co-PD Dr. Erin Haramoto mentors both students.

Kiera’s video “Weed Management Strategies for Establishing Kentucky Bluegrass as a Perennial Cover Crop.” took first place. Hallie’s entry, “Perennial cover crops: evaluating Poaceae species’ establishment and weed suppression potential” (4:34), took second place.

Hallie says: “I enjoyed this opportunity and learned a lot about creating concise, professional research videos to explain my project proposal.” The finished project truly reflects what Hallie learned during the competition.

Learn more about Kierae, Hallie, and other RegenPGC Graduate Student Community members at https://www.regenpgc.org/theme-3-education/graduate-education/.

Dr. Cynthia Bartel and her writing team honored by Agronomy Journal

Congratulations to RegenPGC’s Dr. Cynthia Bartel and her co-authors (Kenneth J. Moore, Shui-Zhang Fei, Andrew Lenssen, Roger L. Hintz & Samantha M. Kling) on having their paper “Evaluating Chemical Suppression Treatments to Alter the Red: Far-Red Ratio in Perennial Groundcovers for Maize Production” selected as an Agronomy Journal “Editor’s Choice Article” for the year 2022.

The article is available as an Open-Access publication at http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/12/8/1854.

“Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals from around the world. Editors select a small number of articles recently published in the journal that they believe will be particularly interesting to readers or important in the respective research area. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the various research areas of the journal.”

RegenPGC releases latest progress report

The RegenPGC research team has a new progress report. This report is the latest on our research enterprise focused on perennial cover crops and can be found here. Each of our Themes and Objectives provides updates on their research and outreach activities from Aug. 1, 2023, to Oct. 31, 2023.

Our goal is to be concise and share our work in ways that help bring stakeholders interested in perennial cover crops to an understanding of what we are doing to get closer to our vision of “well-adapted perennial ground cover  systems for a range of farm operations that require low labor inputs, provide significant ecosystem benefits, increase row crop resiliency, and have similar economic profiles as conventional row crop practices.” Check out our report and see how close we are to our goals.

RegenPGC CoPd Sara Lira to lead new DOE grant

Dr. Sara Lira,* RegenPCG Commercialization Theme Leader, is the new project director for a significant grant ($5M), Feedstocks for Advanced Biofuels from Perennial Ground Cover Systems: FAB-PGCs, from the U.S. Department of Energy. Dr. Lira will lead a team with members from Corteva Agriscience, Iowa State University, C. Bartel Inc., The Land Institute, University of Missouri, University of Nebraska, University of Wisconsin, and POET. Several of the team members already participate in the RegenPGC project.

The new project helps link perennial ground covers grown in row crops to emerging biofuel opportunities. According to the DOE, “This project works to make PGC stover systems more reliable through better crop management while also modeling and documenting reduced N2O emissions and increased soil carbon storage, potentially unlocking tens or hundreds of millions of tons of low CI stover. “

The DOE Office of Bioenergy Technologies (BETO) awarded nine grants “to develop biomass feedstocks to produce affordable biofuels and bioproducts that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.” Learn about all nine projects here.

*Dr. Sara Lira is a graduate of Iowa State University with a B.Sc. in Ecology, an M.Sc. in Genetics, and a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding. Dr. Lira has worked at Corteva/Pioneer for 17 years. Her first years focused on corn breeding. Currently, she is working to develop new cropping systems. Lira’s work is focused on new double and cover cropping systems for grain and livestock. Through research, Dr. Lira’s team hopes to optimize the value of agricultural systems for growers and society.

RegenPGC drops two new progress reports

It’s fall, leaves are dropping, and so are reports. Our team just finished two reports which are now available on our website. We require each of our Themes and Objectives to provide project updates four times a year. These reports let us know what we have accomplished and what is yet to be done as we move forward on our Perennial Ground Cover Vision. Our team, including 21 graduate students, has done an a fantastic job of moving our research agenda ahead over two short years. Check out our progress:

RegenPGC grad students recognized for excellence

Iowa State University Ph.D. student Gabby Myers (Soil Health & Nutrient Management) distinguished herself by receiving a Presentation Excellence Award at the 2023 ASABE Annual International Meeting. The nominating committee noted, “Your oral presentation on Yield, soil, and water quality implications of conventional, cover-cropped, and perennial groundcover corn production systems in tile-drained Iowa cropland was very impressive and informative. You showed a high level of expertise and creativity in your research and analysis. You also communicated your findings and recommendations clearly and persuasively to the audience.”

Iowa State University Ph.D. student Oluwatuyi (Tuyi) Olowoyeye (Ecosystem Services & Modeling) has been recognized as a 2023 – 2026 Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) Fellow.

THE FFAR Fellowship’s tagline is “Future Leaders for Food & Agriculture,” and we do not doubt that Tuyi is on a leadership trajectory! You can learn more about Tuyi and why the FFAR chose to make him a Fellow at https://lnkd.in/g8Qcz_eN

As a USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture CAP grantee, RegenPGC must devote a third of our funding to education, extension, and outreach. Gabby and Tuyi’s achievements indicate that our project is spending public dollars wisely.

RegenPGC in a podcast? You bet!

RegenPGC Project Director Dr. Raj Raman was a guest on a recent episode of the Cereal Grain Café podcast. Hosted by self-described “Food Engineer” Dr. Kurt Rosentrater (Iowa State Univ. Ag & Biosystems Engineering), this Cereal Grain Café episode focused on the question “Is perennial ground cover the future of agriculture?”

Naturally, Dr. Raman had much to say about the potential role of perennial ground covers in making agriculture more resilient to the challenges posed by modern and intensive farming practices in the USA.

Access the entire Cereal Grain Café lineup here.

 

Improving farmer communication

RegenPGC graduate student Philip Ekow Rockson (Iowa State University) has been busy with his RegenPCG mentors D.Raj Raman and Dan Andersen, developing improved ways to communicate cropping system requirements as they pertain to the time and effort needed to deploy perennial ground cover.

Check out his initial work in this poster, “Operations Visualizers (FOVs) that readily communicate and represent requirements of cropping systems,” for the Summer 2023 American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers Annual International Meeting in Omaha.

RegenPGC releases spring 2023 quarterly report

At RegenPGC, not only do we get our work done, but we document our progress by quarter. We celebrate what we have accomplished and can always make sure we are on track as we work on developing a robust Perennial Groundcover approach to cover crops. Check out our latest progress report, covering our work from February – April 2023.

Listen to the data, and learn!

screen shot Regenpgc.org website
New, and improved RegenPGC tagline and “Goals and Vision” statement

Good research is all about paying attention to pertinent data. By listening to the savvy producers in our FLAG* group, we decided to change our RegenPGC tagline and our Goals and Vision Statement.

We know too many of you have been subject to those mind-numbing meetings where you must develop the perfect mission statement. Lucky for us, we didn’t have to do that. We had been thinking about and applying for funding for our Perennial Groundcover vision long before we were fortunate to be funded by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. So, when we put our website together, we were sure that we had distilled the language to express just what we needed to say.

We were close, but we did not nail it. When we met with the FLAG group yesterday, the participants pointed out that farmers are more interested in “reliability” in their cropping systems than worrying about the finer points of risk. Sure, risk is part of the everyday life of those making their living on farm ground. But we were told that risk is something to manage and that what farmers need before adopting new strategies and techniques, like adopting a perennial ground cover approach, is an assurance of reliability.

It was an “ah ha” moment for our team members, and before sunset, we changed our language and remembered that good data is everywhere. You just have to look and listen.
*Farmer and Landowner Advisory Group