Research Results
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Summaries
Easy-to-read summaries are available for these recently completed projects funded by Leopold Center competitive grants.
- Toward a new Homestead Act: Designing a farmstead transfer and leasing program for high-value farming and farmstead preservation
- Corn silage test plot to increase profitability for dairy farmers and reduce winter wind and water erosion
- Energy use and nutrient cycling in pig production systems
- Experiential educational engagement with working groups and communities of practice
- Engaging community planners and local elected officials with local food systems producers to integrate local food systems into community plans and policies
- Assessing the business development strengths and needs of women and Latino farmers in Iowa
- A food distribution network for the Northern Iowa Food and Farm Partnership
- Building student awareness and involvement in the Farm to ISU program
- Research and assistance in support of the Foodsheds in the Upper Midwest Initiative to measure the economic impacts of increased local food production and consumption
Scientific journals
Leopold Center-supported projects have produced these papers published in peer-reviewed journals. Check at a research library or the journal’s website for a report.
- Delate, Kathleen; Daniel Cwach and Craig Chase (2011). Organic no-tillage system effects on soybean, corn and irrigated tomato production and economic performance in Iowa, Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 23(1):49-59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1742170511000524, Published online by Cambridge University Press 19 December 2011.
This work was conducted at the ISU Neely-Kinyon Farm to use a no-tillage roller-crimper system for terminating cover crops prior to planting commercial crops of soybean, corn and tomato. The Leopold Center supports long-term organic plots at the farm.
- Jarchow, Meghann et. al. (2012). The future of agriculture and society in Iowa: Four scenarios, International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 10(1):76-92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2012.646730, Published online by Taylor & Francis 09 March 2012.
This paper was an outcome of a graduate-level course on ecological economics offered at Iowa State University in cooperation with the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics. Facilitators included Jeri Neal of the Leopold Center and Gretchen Zdorkowski and Matt Liebman, ISU Agronomy.
- Larsen, Drake, and Nancy Grudens-Schuck (2012). Using Delphi to track shifts in meanings of scientific concepts in a long-term, expert-lay collaboration on sustainable agriculture research in the Midwest. Paper presented at the Great Plains Society for the Study of Argumentation conference, June 1-2, 2012, Ames, Iowa.
This paper reports on research supported by the Leopold Center at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge on use of prairie conservation strips within crop fields. The evaluation was conducted by a student in the Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture who had received a fellowship from the Leopold Center.
- Miller, James R., Lois Wright Morton, David Engle, Diane Debinski and Ryan Harr (2012). Nature reserves as catalysts for landscape change, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/100227, Published online by Ecological Society of America 14 February 2012.
This is related to work in southern Iowa and northern Missouri to restore grasslands and incorporate patch-burn grazing practices into land management. Investigators also are organizing a symposium as part of the Society for Conservation Biology North American Congress in California this summer.
Back to Leopold Letter Spring 2012
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