Our high-level research themes:
Crop Ecology
How can we quantify and capitalize on plant-to-plant interactions in multi-crop production systems?
Crop Management
What alternative practices, crops, or cropping systems fit in Kansas environments?
Farm Logistics
What are the social and economic pieces of implementing these practices in large-scale Kansas operations?
The #FarmWeird movement has captured imaginations globally. Intercropping, relay-cropping, strip cropping, cover cropping, companion cropping...
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What happens when these practices are implemented? How can we leverage plants to work for us in diverse, risk-averse cropping systems?
Resource use is important for farm profitability and longevity, but so is our ability to produce a crop. In what ways can our cropping systems be improved? What other practice should we explore?
Overall, what can be done to increase efficiency of water and nutrient use, nutrient availability, and production stability in Kansas and beyond?
Novel management practices are neat in theory, but how do they actually WORK? What equipment is needed? What tweaks need to be made to other practices?
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We're looking into how this pencils out in multiple ways, but we're especially interested in the economics aspect.