Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Frontpage Features Archive

Spring green
April 9, 2012

While a majority of Iowa farmers begin planting crops this week, this field of winter canola already is growing and green. This photo shows research plots in Boone County on March 28, where ISU professor Mary Wiedenhoeft and graduate student Stefans Gailans are using alternative crops and rotations with corn and soybean production.

The canola was planted last September and will be harvested in June. In early March 2012, the plots were interseeded with red clover, which provides soil cover and green manure. A year from now, the red clover will be killed and corn will be planted on the plot. The winter canola has yielded similar to better oil production than soybean using this method. Learn more about this Leopold Center project here. The project was featured in the Spring 2012 issue [PDF] of Clean Water Starts with Us newsletter, published by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Seeds for the future
April 2, 2012

Students from Mitchell Elementary School in Ames harvested more than potatoes and carrots from their community garden last summer. The project grew to include an invitation from First Lady Michelle Obama to help her plant a garden at the White House in March. Some of the funds for this pilot garden project came from the Leopold Center's Marketing and Food Systems Initiative and the Local Food and Farm Initiative program. The Volunteer Center of Story County and Prairie Rivers RC&D are using the grant to add a community garden at Sawyer Elementary School in Ames this season.

Magnificent magnolia
March 26, 2012

This Saucer magnolia (Magnolia X soulangiana) was in full array last week at Iowa State, nearly a month early. Spring plant growth is triggered by the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures, and as well as warm sunny days. Aldo Leopold kept detailed records (called phenology) of when plants bloomed and migratory birds arrived at his Shack. ISU offers an honors class in phenology, From Snowmelt to Finals [ISU], but we have been unable to find phenology records for ISU. If you know of any, please share, we'd love to hear from you!  More about Leopold's phenology project [Aldo Leopold Foundation]  Guide to campus trees [ISU]   Photo by Barbara McBreen, ISU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Soil for generations to come
March 19, 2012

Soil is more than just dirt, it is a vibrant, living community. The role of soil in global issues like climate change, dead zones and the future of our food supply is celebrated in a new full-length documentary, Symphony of the Soil. Be the first people in Iowa to see this film on Tuesday, March 27 in Cedar Falls and Wednesday, March 28 in Ames and meet filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia. Photo by Jerry DeWitt.

Iowa Local Food Summit - The next steps
March 12, 2012

What's next for local food in Iowa? We want everyone to be part of the discussion! Consider joining us Tuesday, April 3 for the Iowa Local Food Summit at the Scheman Building in Ames. The day will focus on what needs to be done next in the state's new Local Food and Farm Program that began last fall, based on a preliminary report of the team's work. Register on the event website [ISU Extension]  About this photo: Here are food crops growing in an unheated, one-acre greenhouse in October in east central Iowa. Read more about the research that was conducted in this greenhouse as part of a Leopold Center competitive grant.

Honoring the legacy
March 5, 2012

The Spencer Award is one of Iowa's premiere honors in sustainable agriculture, this year going to dual winners: long-time ISU research farm superintendent Bernie Havlovic and Michael Natvig, a fifth-generation farmer from northeast Iowa who uses organic practices. Havlovic (center front) and Natvig (back, right) each received a $1,000 check at the Leopold Center Advisory Board's meeting last week. Senior associate dean Joe Colletti (front, left) presented the award to Havlovic and UNI professor Laura Jackson presented the award to Natvig.

The award honors Norman and Margaretha Spencer, who farmed near Sioux City for 40 years. Although not a graduate of ISU, Norman Spencer maintained an active relationship with ISU’s College of Agriculture and several professors, encouraging them to conduct research on sustainable practices and family farming. The award was established in 2001 by an endowment from the Spencer family.  Read about the dual recipients in our Winter Leopold Letter

Ames Reads Leopold
February 27, 2012

Contemplation. The natural world. Your favorite author. Add a few like-minded folks from your community, photographs, food, music and you have an Aldo Leopold Weekend. It's a way of bringing your community together around Aldo Leopold's land ethic. In Ames, residents will celebrate the fifth year of listening to Leopold's writings read aloud at "Ames Reads Leopold" on Sunday, March 4. Read more about Aldo Leopold Weekends (typically the first weekend in March), hosted by the Aldo Leopold Foundation. Read more about the Ames event. Above is Aldo Leopold's famous "Shack" where he wrote many of his essays in A Sand County Almanac [photo courtesy Aldo Leopold Foundation].

Landscape transformation
February 20, 2012

Here's a look at work crews as they install a buffer along Bear Creek in Story County as part of a Leopold Center research team project. That was in the early 1990s; now the site is part of the Bear Creek National Demonstration Watershed, one of the most studied riparian buffers in Iowa. For more historical milestones, visit an interactive timeline of the Center's 25-year history. More about the research team and what the area looks like today.

Cover crop advantages
February 13, 2012

The most recent annual results from a four-year study at Iowa State University led by agronomist Ken Moore reveal that using cover crops can lead to higher yields – by as much as 10 percent. Moore (on right) and colleague Jeremy Singer, from the National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment in Ames, inspect the living mulch between rows; their most recent experiment looked at either bluegrass or red fescue, combined with strip till practices. File photo by Dan Kuester, ISU News Service. Read about this study [ISU News Service]

High tunnel horticulture
February 6, 2012

One of the first people to experiment with high tunnels at Iowa State University research and demonstration farms was Bernie Havlovic, who manages the Armstrong farm near Lewis and the Neely-Kinyon farm near Greenfield in southwest Iowa. The system is great for season extension, especially high-value crops such as raspberries. Havlovic and northeast Iowa organic farmer Mike Natvig will receive the Spencer Award for Sustainable Agriculture on March 1 in Ames. The award recognizes people who have helped develop sustainable farming practices for the stability of family farms. More about this award.