2007 Ecology Initiative Competitive Grants [Return to Ecology Initiative page]
|
||||
|
|
||||
Adapting land retirement programs in response to Iowa’s changing agricultural economy This project will be a conservation policy white paper that recommends USDA program changes for selecting and managing agricultural lands in Iowa most in need of ecological restoration and permanent protection, specifically how to protect land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) under pressure by the biofuel market to be returned to crop production. The paper will be based on extensive stakeholder dialogue gathered at six meetings. Investigators will work with a Technical Advisory Committee with representatives from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Farm Service Agency, Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, ISU Center for Agriculture and Rural Development, ISU faculty, and the Leopold Center. A second group, the Policy Leadership Committee, will include representatives from Conservation Districts of Iowa, Practical Farmers of Iowa, Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, Iowa Farmers Union, Iowa Soybean Association, Iowa Cattleman’s Association, Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, Iowa Pork Producers, Pheasants Forever, Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, and Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation.
Duane Sand is an environmental consultant from Norwalk, Iowa. Most of his work is for the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, where he coordinates work on state appropriations, federal farm policy and model watershed projects. From 1981 to 1993 he was with the INHF coordinating soil and water conservation projects related to agriculture. Prior to that, he was employed by the Soil Conservation Service for seven years. He has many years of experience working with clean water and sustainable agriculture coalitions, at both the state and national levels. He is a member and volunteer for several Iowa environmental organizations.
|
||||
Agronomic, ecological and economic comparisons of conventional and low-external-input cropping systems
Matt Liebman is a professor in the Department of Agronomy and chair of the interdepartmental Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture. He is also a member of the graduate faculties in Biorenewable Resources and Technology, Crop Production and Physiology, and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. His research focuses on the development of farming systems that are productive, profitable and environmentally benign. Topics addressed in his research group include biomass production and nutrient cycling by annual and perennial crops used as biofuel feedstocks; weed suppression by cover crops, rodent and insect seed predators, and diverse crop rotations; nitrogen fertilizer replacement values of legume green manures; energetic costs and economic returns associated with simple and diverse rotation systems; and dynamics of native plant communities in filter and buffer strips constructed in and around corn and soybean fields. He teaches graduate courses concerning diversified farming systems and ecologically based pest management strategies. He is a co-author of the book Ecological Management of Agricultural Weeds, published in 2001 by Cambridge University Press, and held the Pioneer Agronomy Professorship from 2001 through 2004. |
||||
Custom grazing in Iowa This project will evaluate existing grazing arrangements used in Iowa, recommend how they could be improved, and create educational materials on the findings. PFI also will work with ISU Extension and the Iowa Beef Center to gain more insight by conducting in-depth interviews with 50 producers, and analyze results of an ongoing grazing and pasture rent survey conducted by the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). Results will be compiled and used in a series of workshops and field days, at which the investigators hope to reach 700 farmer/graziers with information on successful models for custom grazing contracts in Iowa. They also will develop an Iowa Custom Graziers Directory with additional information.
Teresa Opheim is executive director for Practical Farmers of Iowa. She is a fourth generation Iowan, raised in Mason City, and has a variety of experience in sustainable agriculture. For three years she was executive director for the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group and Sustainable Agriculture Coalition that worked with 40 member groups. She also was communications director at the Iowa Environmental Council and editor for the National Wetlands Newsletter, The Environmental Forum, the EPA Journal, and the Environmental Information Service. She has a law degree from the University of Iowa and was admitted to the Minnesota bar in 1985.
|
||||
|
Iowa recreational property ownership:
Identification, contact and social dynamics of multiple use
perennial landcover $19,618, 1 year, Mimi Wagner, ISU Department of Landscape Architecture and Jim LaGro, UW-Madison Department of Urban and Regional Planning [E2007-19] FAYETTE, APPANOOSE and CLARKE COUNTIES This project addresses two problems in expanding productive use of beef and dairy grazing on non-resident rural property owners in Iowa: lack of understanding about the extent and characteristics of non-resident owned land and identification of landowners and little understanding about their willingness to integrate contract grazing and other agricultural practices into their land use. The principal investigators are using GIS-based analysis to identify non-resident rural property owners in Fayette, Appanoose, and Clarke counties, and conducting telephone interviews with a subsample of non-resident landowners. An advisory committee with representation from five state agencies and nonprofit organizations advise the project and assist in directing development of communication strategies for future use in contacting property owners.
|
||||
|
Quantifying the role of perennial vegetation in removing nitrate from groundwater in riparian buffers $84,054 over 3 years, William Simpkins, ISU Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences; Richard Schultz and Thomas Isenhart, ISU Department of Natural Resources, Ecology and Management; and Timothy Parkin, National Soil Tilth Laboratory [E2007-22] NORTH CENTRAL IOWA Using field and laboratory experiments, this study will quantify the ability of established perennial plant communities to remove nitrate from groundwater and apportion nitrate loss via plant uptake versus denitrification. A Groundwater Nitrate Removal Index (GNRI) will be developed to help guide the strategic placement of perennial plants in riparian buffers across the agricultural landscape. Experimental sites will be established in existing riparian buffers in the Bear Creek watershed, which has one of the oldest and most extensive areas of contiguous streamside buffers in the nation with more than 8 miles of buffers and a sequence of plantings that range from one to 15 years.
William Simpkins is a professor of hydrogeology in the ISU Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences and teaches basic courses in hydrogeology (groundwater) and hydrology, including field methods and computer modeling applications. He co-teaches a course that examines the environmental effects of energy exploration, production and use. His research interests include the agricultural groundwater quality and geochemistry, the hydrogeology of riparian buffers, the water quantity impacts of ethanol production, groundwater/lake interaction, and aquifer sustainability. A native of Illinois, he holds a B.A. in geology from Augustana College (Illinois), M.S. degrees in geology and geophysics and in water resources management from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Ph.D. in geology and geophysics from the same institution. He has been a faculty member at ISU since 1989 where he has teaching responsibilities in the Environmental Science graduate and undergraduate programs. Simpkins has also worked at the Bear Creek riparian buffer since its inception in 1990 and is also involved in tine USDA's Conservation Effects Assessment Project.
|
||||
Screening winter triticale cultivars and breeding lines for forage and biomass production This project will create research-based information for developing and selecting winter cereal grain varieties for forage and biomass production. The objectives of the research are to quantify the forage and biomass production in Iowa from commercially available winter triticale and rye cultivars, and screen breeding lines of winter triticale for forage and biomass production in Iowa with the goal of releasing new cultivars. Field experimentation and trait assessment will be conducted at Ames and Nashua in 2007, 2008 and 2009. The research for 2007, planted in September, includes 15 commercial triticale cultivars, 19 experimental triticale lines, five commercial rye cultivars, and two rye/triticale blends. Adding more acres of winter crops to current cropping systems would provide cropping system and environmental benefits, such as erosion control, improved nitrogen capture and nutrient cycling, better nutrient use efficiency, and increased profitability. Livestock producers, crop producers, cereal grain breeders, the biofuels industry and policy developers are the primary audiences for this research. The general public and consumers of agricultural products have considerable stake in the potential benefits that these systems possess for reducing sediment, nutrient, and pesticide contamination of surface and ground waters of the region and creation of more diversified wildlife habitat in agriculturallandscapes.
Lance Gibson is an associate professor of agronomy at Iowa State University. He contributes to the scholarly program of the department through research and teaching directed at improved crop management in the Midwestern United States. In that role, he conducts research on agronomic crops relatively new to Iowa including eastern gamagrass, triticale and canola.
|
||||
Soil moisture dynamics and plant transpiration under contrasting annual-perennial cover types Investigators hope to gain a better understanding of how soil moisture and plant water use vary under differing annual-perennial plant communities. This information will be beneficial by enabling land use managers to understand how placement of different vegetative cover types on the landscape can influence the hydrologic balance and potentially enhance the sustainability of agricultural production systems. The study will provide data on soil moisture dynamics and plant water use of various plant communities. Sixteen different treatments (3 replications) will be studied including corn, soybeans, brome grass, switchgrass, winter cover crops in a corn soybean system, and four different native perennial species both in monoculture and polyculture plots (big bluestem, Canada wild rye, false blue indigo, and stiff goldenrod).
Matt Helmers is an assistant professor and extension agricultural engineer in the ISU Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he studied two-dimensional overland flow and sediment trapping in vegetative filters. His research and extension focus at Iowa State is in the areas of water quality and water resources management. In particular, he is studying water quality and hydrologic effects of agricultural best management practices including strategic placement and design of buffer systems and methods to improve water quality in tile drained landscapes. His extension program is focused on education of producers and other stakeholders on the impacts of agricultural practices on water quality and methods to minimize these impacts. He is an Iowa native from Sibley, and his family still farms in the area.
|
||||
Mimi
Wagner is an associate professor of landscape architecture at
Iowa State University where she teaches regional design, social
and behavioral factors, community design, and landscape
management. Her research explores the role that biophysical
science plays in regional scale design and planning and how
social information appropriate to the design process is
collected and integrated. Her current work is developing urban
stream assessment and restoration methods integrating
hydrologic, ecologic, and social metrics and the exploration of
urban stormwater management and policy perceptions among various
stakeholder groups. 
