Our latest Quarterly Progress Report is now available for download here. Catch up on our research team’s efforts to achieve our goal of developing and increasing the reliability of perennial ground cover systems.
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/.
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 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.
Listen to the data, and learn!
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
RegenPGC releases latest quarterly progress report
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.
RegenPGC releases updated FAQs
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.
RegenPGC releases new video, first in proposed series
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.
RegenPGC releases quarterly progress report
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.