Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Current Competitive Grant

Impacts of conventional and diversified rotation systems on crop yields, profitability, soil functions and environmental quality

Project ID: E2010-02

This 3-year grant for $90,182 was awarded in 2010.

Location: Boone county

This project is a continuation of a previously funded grant that compared the agronomic, ecological and economic effects of conventional and low external input cropping systems. It focuses on measurements of nitrate leaching, greenhouse gas emissions from soil, carbon sequestration, and soil organic matter transformations, especially those related to nitrogen availability to crops. For this effort, the soybean and corn plots have been split to allow side-by-side comparisons of genetically engineered and non-genetically engineered hybrids and varieties.

Matt Liebman

Matt Liebman Matt Liebman is professor of agronomy and the Henry A. Wallace Endowed Chair for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. He was one of the founding members of ISU's Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture and served as that program's chair from 2004 through 2007. He has a B.A. in biological sciences from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in botany from the University of California-Berkeley. [Contact lead investigator]

Co-Investigator(s):

Craig Chase, Leopold Center, Tom Sauer, USDA-ARS, Mark Tomer, USDA-ARS, Michelle Wander, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

This competitive grant project is part of the Leopold Center's Ecology Initiative.

Topics: Multi-year rotations, low-external input, Soils and agronomy