Rooting for Ecosystem Services
This project uses multi-disciplinary expertise and farmer feedback to identify and evaluate traits that can document organic systems’ contribution to supporting and provisioning ecosystem services.
Being Particulate about Soil Organic Matter
Our goal is to develop effective modeling tools and soil health metrics to increase organic grain farmers’ ability to manage plant-soil feedbacks to maintain adequate N for high nutrient demanding crops like corn while maintaining environmental quality.
Corn and Soil Health
This project conducts advanced on-farm research to identify biophysical and social/legal factors influencing the performance of organic maize cultivars and dependent businesses. Specifically, it seeks to 1) build capacity that supports a participatory testing and breeding program, 2) conduct a maize-based case study to explore on-farm factors including plant-soil interactions that influence crop fitness and grain quality and, 3) identify and communicate how organizational structures, sharing and intellectual property agreements can promote client-oriented breeding programs to improve our organic seed supply.