Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences have been awarded a $2.3 million grant by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate how certain cover crops and rotations can improve production of organic commodities. The study's goal is to determine whether diverse cover crop mixtures -- as opposed to a single-species cover cropping -- can enhance ecosystem functions in a corn-soybean-wheat cash crop rotation that produces organic feed and forage. "There has been a lot of regional interest in these mixtures, or cover crop cocktails as they are sometimes called, so we want to provide farmers with information they need to design mixtures that serve them well,"said project leader Jason Kaye, associate professor of soil biogeochemistry (more)
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences -- funded by a grant of approximately $2.5 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- will study the interaction between weed, insect and soil-management methods for organic production of small grains, corn and soybeans. (more)