After decades of growing corn and soybean yields across the Midwest’s Corn Belt, per-acre yields are approaching their theoretical limits. But there’s still a need for more grain to feed people and livestock. Where can that grain come from? How can farmers and fields produce even more? Is there a new, sustainable way to boost…
Iowa State University’s Consortium for Cultivating Human and Naturally reGenerative Enterprises (C-CHANGE) is hosting its inaugural Conference on Agriculture, Technology and Innovation March 25-27, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa. The conference – themed “Why are we missing the boat on biogas?” – is designed to bring together experts from agriculture, energy, government, science and society…
Dense urban areas use up more energy, water and food resources than they can produce themselves, forcing them to rely on external sources. But a team of researchers is imagining bold new ways to make Midwestern cities more self-reliant. The Sustainable Cities Research Team recently received a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop…
U.S. farmers will be able to collect federal conservation payments for installing prairie strips on their land, and Iowa State University researchers helped bridge the gap between the latest science and federal policy. The 2018 Farm Bill, approved by Congress and signed into law December 2018, for the first time named prairie strips, or the strategic…
A multi-state experiment that recently received a major grant will examine how planting cover crops on farm fields affects plant disease, pests and weeds. Alison Robertson, a professor of plant pathology and microbiology at Iowa State University, will lead a portion of the experiments as part of a much larger project awarded a $10 million…
$260.9 million tops previous record of $252.5 million in FY2016 Iowa State University closed the 2019 fiscal year achieving a new record for external research funding – $260.9 million. This surpasses the previous milestone of $252.5 million established in FY2016, reaffirming the university’s long-standing position as a leading land-grant research institution. Iowa State set new…
A research project looking for ways to add value to biochar may have found an unexpected application for the black power that’s a co-product of thermochemically converting biomass to a liquid bio-oil. Iowa State University researchers have found biochar could be a slow-release fertilizer that delivers nutrients to crops while keeping those nutrients from washing…
Iowa State engineers contributed to a study of the economic value of significantly expanding the connections between the country’s eastern and western power grids. Expanding the connections could allow wind power from the Midwest and solar power from the Southwest to move back and forth across the country. The two-year, $1.5 million study was part…
Food loss and waste is a global problem that negatively impacts the bottom line of businesses and farmers, wastes limited resources and damages the environment. The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), The Rockefeller Foundation and Iowa State University today launched the Consortium for Innovation in Post-Harvest Loss and Food Waste Reduction at the 2019 Iowa International Outreach…
A farmer using big data technology to manage pesticide application or a school cafeteria director conducting an audit to reduce food waste are both saving money by investing in sustainability. These examples do not come from a textbook, but from the work Priyanka Jayashankar, an adjunct assistant professor of management in Iowa State University’s Ivy College…
