Location: Rangeland Resources & Systems Research
Project Number: 3012-21500-001-053-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jul 1, 2026
End Date: Jun 30, 2028
Objective:
1. Develop management strategies to increase resilience of dryland agroecosystems with high within- and between-year variability.
2. Utilize precision crop and rangeland/livestock technology (e.g., field and animal sensors, specialized equipment) to investigate agroecosystem production, structure, and function in dryland agroecosystems of the western Great Plains.
Approach:
This project will emphasize co-production research approaches directly with American farmers and ranchers to increase resilience of dryland agroecosystems of the western Great Plains, which are characterized by high intra- and inter-annual variability in timing and amounts of precipitation, extreme events, and market dynamics. Collaborative research projects will leverage existing resources at USDA-ARS sites (e.g., the Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network site at the Central Plains Experimental Range (CPER) in shortgrass steppe, a semi-arid rangeland in the Western Great Plains where a rancher-led stakeholder group are collaborating with an interdisciplinary team of scientists involving rangeland scientists, rangeland ecologists, animal scientists, and technical support, and the Central Great Plains Field Station in Akron, CO with extensive legacy experiments in dryland cropping with local farmers). Specifically, this work will address utilizing precision crop and rangeland/livestock technology (e.g., field and animal sensors, specialized equipment) to investigate agroecosystem production, structure, and function in dryland agroecosystems of the western Great Plains in experiments explicitly involving American ranchers and farmers to improve production and profitability, improve soil health, and reduce invasives.