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.
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.
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?”
