Sustainable Agriculture News

Experts Opinion about Sustainable Cropping System

Sieglinde Snapp, a professor of soils and cropping systems ecology and associate director of the Center for Global Change at Michigan State University, opened the event with a lecture that served as both the symposium's keynote address and the second lecture in the 2015 Sustainable Agriculture Seminar Series.

Snapp described her research program on perennial wheat, which potentially can be grown for grain and fodder while also providing environmental benefits such as soil conservation. She shared early results from her work comparing perennial wheat genotypes that are currently available to intermediate wheatgrass (Kernza™) and annual wheat on several measures including grain yield, fodder potential and quality, nitrogen conservation, and soil carbon contributions. While the perennial varieties have shown significant shortcomings in grain yields and regrowth performance, they can dramatically reduce nitrogen loss. "These are really superior cover crops. The water quality is fantastic, and [they have] really good roots," said Snapp. "But they were not very good cereals. We still have a ways to go."

Snapp also described several long-term experiments she and her colleagues are conducting to determine how best to integrate cover crops into crop rotations that are typical of Michigan growers, who have limited winter cover-crop options given their narrow fall planting window. The researchers are comparing a variety of crop-rotation and management regimes, on both plot and field scales, and Snapp shared a number of findings from these studies. For example, in her eight-year experiments comparing corn yields with and without a preceding rye cover crop, she found that cover crops didn’t hurt yields, but also didn’t provide much agronomic benefit beyond soil conservation. [See the sidebar for links to some resources that have resulted from Snapp’s research programs.]

The Symposium continued with oral and poster presentations that featured four Penn State-led sustainable cropping systems projects and a USDA long-term agro-ecosystem research initiative:
- The Sustainable Dairy Cropping Systems Project, funded by the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NE-SARE) program of the USDA, is evaluating ecological strategies for an average-sized Pennsylvania dairy farm to produce all of its forage, feed, and tractor fuel needs, and to minimize off-farm inputs. Learn more about the Sustainable Dairy Cropping Systems Project and see abstracts of posters presented during the symposium here.

- The Northeast Woody/Warm Season Biomass Consortium (NEWBio) and related projects seek to accelerate the development of a biomass-based economy in harmony with both existing agro ecosystems and the environment. Learn more about the NEWBio project and see abstracts of posters presented during the symposium.

- Finding the Right Mix: Multifunctional Cover Crop Cocktails for Organic Systems, informally known as the Cover Crop Cocktails project, seeks to determine the agronomic, environmental, and economic benefits and costs of using cover crop mixtures in an organic crop production system. Learn more about the Cover Crop Cocktails project and see abstracts of posters presented during the symposium.

- The Reduced-Tillage Organic Systems Experiment (ROSE) project team is working to develop sustainable reduced-tillage organic feed-grains production systems for the Mid-Atlantic region in response to producer interest in combining the soil-conserving and labor-saving capacity of no-till practices with the soil health-building capacity of organic practices. Learn more about the ROSE project and see abstracts of posters presented during the symposium.

- The USDA Long-Term Agro-Ecosystem Research Network (USDA-LTAR) is conducting research at 18 coordinated sites typifying the major agro-ecosystems and river basins of the US to address several challenges facing US agriculture. Learn more about the USDA-LTAR and see abstracts of posters presented during the symposium.

The symposium concluded with two breakout sessions, during which participants discussed the topics of "Data Management" and "Extension Products." In the data management session, led by Glenna Malcom and Ebony Murrell, participants discussed how datasets should be organized for easy interpretation and accessibility, when and how data should be shared publicly, and how research groups can more effectively work together to improve project data management. The participants concluded that data should be organized in raw form in a universal format (such as CSV) and accompanied by a metadata sheet or a description of the data-collection protocol. Raw data then could be imported into a statistical program (such as R), and extra calculations and data transformations could be performed using that software. Participants agreed that data should be shared publicly once they are published. It was suggested that data could be archived in a password-protected database prior to publication; other collaborators who wish to access unpublished data could then be granted access on an individual basis. To improve collaborative data management, participants suggested that research groups should establish database protocols and formats at the beginning of a research project, and if possible allocate funding in their grant applications specifically for data management (such as funding a student or manager whose job would be to organize and manage shared datasets).

In the extension products session, led by John Wallace and Barbara Baraibar, participants discussed how to produce and market extension materials that are more descriptive in content, such as the Agroecology in Practice series. Participants agreed about the potential for stronger collaboration between sustainable cropping system projects to produce and market extension products. Suggested extension materials included short and long fact sheets, webinars, and written articles in publications such as Lancaster Farming. The discussion also focused on the anticipated changes to the Penn State Extension delivery system, which will centralize extension products in a new website to be rolled out in September 2015. Given these anticipated changes, many participants felt that the sustainable cropping system projects would benefit from a more unified identity, via a dedicated website or the creation of a research center. This would reflect the ongoing synergy among projects and potentially improve marketing of extension products.

Source: http://extension.psu.edu/plants/sustainable/symposium/5th-annual