Webinar Series Unlocks Potential of Perennial Groundcovers in Corn and Corn/Soybean Production Systems

A five-week lunch-and-learn webinar series starting in January 2025 will explore the innovative use of perennial groundcovers in corn and corn/soybean production systems as a cover crop. This series, sponsored by Iowa State University and RegenPCG, will be held on consecutive Tuesdays (Jan. 14, 21, 28 and Feb. 4 and 11, 2025) from 12-1 p.m. CST.

Register for the webinar series and stay tuned for the video series release.

This webinar series will focus on providing information on what perennial groundcover agriculture is, the potential benefits it offers, insight into how to effectively manage these systems, and work that is being undertaken to make them more robust for widespread adoption and implementation. The presentations are tailored for farmers, crop advisors, technical service providers, government agencies (NRCS/DNR) and other agricultural scientists eager to understand the possibilities and challenges of integrating perennial groundcovers into their row crop agriculture.

Jan. 14, 2025 – Perennial Ground Cover Integration into Corn and Soybean Production: System Basics and Potential Benefits; all speakers are from Iowa State University.
• Raj Raman – A visionary overview of the potential and scalability of perennial groundcovers in corn and soybean production systems
• Ken Moore and Roger Hintz – An operational guide to implementing a perennial groundcover in corn and soybean production systems
• Philip Rockson – A comparative analysis of time and labor demands across conventional, cereal rye and perennial ground cover in corn and soybean production systems
• Cyndi Bartel – Comparisons of costs for conventional, cover cropping and perennial groundcover in corn and soybean production systems
Jan. 21, 2025 – Perennial Ground Cover Suppression and Weed Management within Corn and Soybean Production Systems
• Amina Moro, Iowa State University – Crop Zone Requirements
• Sara Lira and Brent Wilson, Corteva Agriscience – Techniques for maintaining a crop growth zone in corn and soybean production systems
• Erin Haramoto, University of Kentucky – Chemical weed control options for perennial groundcover systems. Experiences and options
 Jan. 28, 2025 – Selecting Perennial Groundcovers for Corn and Soybean Production Systems and Their Ideal Characteristics
• Shuizhang Fei, Iowa State University – Choices for perennial groundcover in corn and soybean production systems
• Patrick Galland, Iowa State University – Research of unsuppressed production systems with perennial ground cover in corn production
• Brandon Schlautman, The Land Institute, and Philip Rockson, Iowa State University – Experiences from partnering farms using perennial ground cover in corn and soy production systems

Feb. 4, 2025 – Corn Hybrid Performance within Perennial Groundcover Systems
• Raj Raman, Iowa State University – Types of perennial groundcover production systems and how this influences brittleness
• Thomas Lubberstedt and Memis Bilgici, Iowa State University – Should we breed corn for use in perennial groundcover production systems?
• Sara Lira, Corteva Agriscience – Evaluating hybrid performance in well suppressed perennial groundcover systems

Feb. 11, 2025 – Quantifying and Valorizing Ecosystem Service Benefits for Perennial Groundcover in Corn and Soybean Production; all speakers are from Iowa State University
• Marshall McDaniel– Soil moisture results and water competition for nitrogen in perennial groundcover systems
• Oluwatuyi Olowoyeye – Research on grass cover and erosion control
• Philip Rockson – Findings on nitrogen leaching reduction
• Cyndi Bartel – Federal farm bill programs and valorizing ecosystem services
For more information about the series, please contact Daniel Andersen at dsa@iastate.edu or 515-294-4210. For registration inquiries, please contact Melissa McEnany at mmcenany@iastate.edu or 515-294-9075.

Research? Just never stop learning.

“Withut deviation progress is not possible.” This is probably the first time a USDA-NIFA report has inspiration in a quote attributed to Frank Zappa!

The quote is interesting, but we don’t totally agree with it in the context of our latest quarterly report (May 1 – July 31, 2024). We have never stopped learning about perennial groundcover since we started this project in 2021. Each research result teaches us something new, and we reassess what we previously believed in light of new information. At the same time, we never deviate from our goal of developing and increasing the reliability of perennial ground cover systems.

We measure our progress on our ability to make continuous course corrections. With that mindset, we think we are well on our way to demonstrating that perennial groundcover can be a useful approach to providing a range of farm operations with cover crops that require low labor inputs, provide significant ecosystem benefits, increase row crop resiliency, and have similar economic profiles as conventional row crop practices.

Graduate students are our Research Project’s Superpower

Marvel and D.C. Comics have a lot of superpower characters; we have our Graduate Education Community! Granted, our 19 grad students don’t wear flashy tights, but they represent the future of ag sciences, and we think they have some serious superpowers driving our perennial groundcover research forward at a fast clip.

Meet Sagar Dahal, the newest member of our Graduate Education Community. Sagar is a PhD student in Agricultural Economics with academic interests in price analysis, futures and options, risk management, and commodity markets. Sagar will be working with RegenPGC CoProject Director Dr. Amani Elobeid.

Sagar holds a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from the Agriculture and Forestry University, Nepal, and an MS in Agricultural Economics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His master’s thesis, “Exploring the Presence of Nonlinear Deterministic Dynamics in Commodity Prices,” reflects his deep interest in understanding complex market behaviors.

During his Masters’ studies, Sagar worked as a Graduate Research Assistant, where he gained experience in academic writing, data management, and analysis. He also gained teaching experience as a Teaching Assistant for Applied Econometrics and Introduction to Microeconomics.

Sagar enjoys listening to music, watching movies, hiking, and camping in his free time. Learn more about Sagar and his colleagues at https://www.regenpgc.org/theme-3-education/graduate-education/.

Philip Rockson is the latest RegenPGC student to earn a Master’s degree

Please join us in congratulating RegenPGC graduate student Philip E. Rockson (Rockson) on the acceptance of his Master’s thesis at Iowa State University, “Visualization of agricultural field operations,” available at https://lnkd.in/g-w-tkAd.

Rockson was mentored throughout by RegenPGC Project Director Dr. Dave Raj Raman and was also assisted by RegenPGC CoPd Dr. Daniel Andersen. Rockson is now working on adding a Ph.D. to his list of accomplishments. We are pleased that he has chosen Iowa State University for his Ph.D. studies. You can learn more about Rockson and his RegenPGC Graduate Education Community colleagues at https://lnkd.in/gMHFKXMk.

Before joining the Iowa State University graduate student community, Rockson earned a degree in Agricultural Engineering in Ghana. Afterward, he gained his first experience working with national farms. As he pursued his interests in technology, Rockson had the opportunity to work with startups, gaining valuable experience in industry. Eventually, he joined the technology division of a bank with a presence across Africa, where he worked on developing services and applications. Seeking to delve further into agriculture, engineering, and technology, Rockson returned to school to explore research opportunities in regenerative and precision agriculture. We are so pleased that he found a home with the RegenPGC research team!

RegenPGC featured in No-Till Farmer Magazine

Check out the no-till farming community’s view of our perennial ground cover project in the latest edition of No-Till Farmer magazine.

Producer Charles Martin’s article, “Productivity Meets Conservation with Perennial Groundcovers & Strip-Till,” explains our perennial ground cover project from the perspective of the working no-till farmer. The article is available online (free, registration required).

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 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.