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:
Iowa State University Ph.D. student Gabby Myers (Soil Health & Nutrition 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 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.
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.
We are pleased to be working with 4H to share our project with youth on June 23rd at the Iowa State University Northern Research Farm.
Our team will share information and coordinate hands-on activities and experiments for kids to learn more about PGC and its benefits. Activities include rain simulators, insect collection and identification, soil microbiology, exploration of cover crops, and more.
Date: June 23 / Time: 8:30 AM-12:30 PM
Lunch included
MORE INFORMATION: hayslett@iastate.edu
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
Our latest quarterly progress report (Nov. 1, 2022 – Jan. 31, 2023) is available for download. Catch up on our Team’s latest activities. Questions? Contact Anne Kinzel (akinzel@iastate.edu). Don’t forget to check out our latest news on our new RegenPCG LinkedIn page. Our research team has been incredibly busy preparing for the summer 2023 field trial season. Stay tuned for our new field trial webpage coming out in late April. We anticipate hosting multiple field day events in Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and Ohio, where we will share the latest developments on perennial grass establishment and suppression. We learn more about perennial grass cover management daily and look forward to sharing our new knowledge with multiple ag constituents.
The RegenPGC research team has released an updated FAQ set that answers many questions about our vision of perennial groundcover in the Midwestern agricultural landscape. This updated FAQ set replaces the ones from 2022 and reflects the ongoing work of our research team.
The 22 questions and answers are available on our website.
Watch Raj Raman, Regen PGC Project Director, introduce our perennial ground cover research project. With funding from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, we expect to go a long way in moving the needle on a new way of doing cover crops. This video is the first in a series of brief videos that will feature RegenPGC researchers discussing perennial ground cover planting, suppression, and other important agronomic management issues.
The RegenPGC Project (Regenerating America’s Working Landscapes to Enhance Natural Resources and Public Goods) just released its latest quarterly progress report covering the period Aug. 1, 2022 – Oct. 31, 2022. The report describes progress made by each project’s Theme and Objective teams toward the goal of developing and derisking perennial groundcover systems. The report, which is submitted to USDA-NIFA every quarter, is available for download. For further information, contact Anne Kinzel, Deputy Director, via email.
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 Project Director 
RegenPGC graduate student 
