Location: Pasture Systems & Watershed Management Research
2024 Annual Report
Objectives
Objective 1: Evaluate existing and novel forage and animal management strategies to facilitate climate-smart agriculture in integrated crop-pasture-livestock systems.
Sub-objective 1. A: Develop cover crop management strategies to improve forage production, grazing potential, N use efficiency (NUE), resilience to climate change, and environmental impact in integrated crop-pasture-livestock systems.
Sub-objective 1. B: Evaluate productivity, nutritive value, resilience to climate change, and environmental impact of novel forages and forage management strategies in integrated forage crop-grazing livestock systems in the Northeast.
Sub-objective 1. C: Evaluate the effects of interseeding annual forages into established pastures and corn for improved soil health, increased resilience to climate change, improved annual forage production, integration of livestock with crops, and improved NUE.
Objective 2: Development and validation of data collection and computational tools for monitoring and optimizing management to improve production efficiency and environmental sustainability in integrated crop-forage-livestock systems.
Sub-objective 2. A: Develop, evaluate, and refine precision monitoring technologies for pasture and forage systems at multiple scales.
Sub-objective 2. B: Incorporate enhanced monitoring capabilities into decision support systems to increase production, profitability, and ecosystem services provisioning while reducing environmental impacts.
Approach
There is renewed interest in re-integrating farming enterprises to focus not only on plant and animal productivity but also on improved carbon sequestration, nitrogen use efficiency, water quality, pollinator habitat, and resiliency to climatic changes. However, there is a lack of comprehensive, interdisciplinary research that addresses integrating crops, pasture, and livestock on the diverse landscapes of the Northeast. This project will take a multifaceted approach to evaluate management strategies and technologies for agricultural productivity and ecosystem services to understand better the trade-offs and synergies in environmental and economic impacts related to the management of crop-livestock systems in the Northeast and nationally. Objective 1 of this project plan will investigate how on-the-ground changes in forage and animal management strategies in integrated crop-pasture-livestock systems can mitigate or adapt to climate changes to reduce environmental impact while maintaining sustainable and profitable farming enterprises. Objective 2 leverages technologies to create monitoring and decision support tools, based upon data gathered in Objective 1, to promote production efficiency and environmental sustainability of crop-pasture-livestock systems. Agricultural resilience to changing climates requires elements of both mitigation and adaptation. No single variable can capture the potential range of responses. Instead, the agronomic experiments provide essential information on forage and crop management strategies that have the potential to improve both provisioning and regulating services; modeling offers an approach to quantifying the outcomes of those strategies under potential future climates and across agricultural landscapes.
We will collaborate with larger USDA-led research networks, including the Long-Term Agroecological Research network (LTAR), Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP), and Dairy Agroecosystems Working Group (DAWG). Such networking provides expertise and data on outcomes from management strategies for integrated crop-pasture-livestock systems that will be used to complete the objectives of this project.
Opportunities for greater integration of crops, pastures, and livestock on farms in the diverse landscapes of the Northeast are abundant. Research is needed to establish the production, logistical, and environmental limitations and consequences of integrated-crop–livestock production systems and to understand the potential interactions among various components. Integrated systems are expected to more tightly couple nutrient and water cycling, benefiting crop and forage species and supporting biomass production. Negative interactions may also occur, including increased crop pests and pathogens due to alternate hosts, increased weed pressure after cover cropping, and undesirable changes in forage availability or quality. Quantifying positive and negative interactions ensures that future management recommendations are valuable and accurate and will improve sustainability.
Progress Report
Under Sub-objective 1.A, triticale-legume (1.A.1) plots were established.
Under Sub-objective 1.B, intermediate wheatgrass (1.B.1) plots were established. Ring installation is scheduled for early summer, with intermediate wheatgrass transplanting in early fall and 15N applications scheduled in spring 2025. (1.B.2) There were no 12-month milestones for 1.B.3. Black oat plot establishment was delayed one year to allow for field preparation and sufficient staff time to conduct study (1.B.4). The intermediate wheat grass fermentor study was not conducted due to the departure of the two crucial staff members (support scientist and post doc) who would have led and conducted the study. Fermentors will be started again once these positions are filled (1.B.5).
Under Sub-objective 1.C, corn was established and cereal rye was interseeded into the corn (1.C.1). Forage plots for the interseeded corn study were established (1.C.2).
Under Sub-objective 2.A, technological issues resulted in delayed development of the behavior recorder. COVID restrictions prevented research on this sub-objective for well over a year. In addition, many sources of parts and electronics are either now prohibited sources or were so backlogged with orders that obtaining the components needed was severely inhibited. As a result, other technologies have now been developed with similar capabilities and it must now be determined whether it is a judicial use of our time and resources to continue this research, or just use other technologies that are currently on the market (2.A.1).
Under Sub-objective 2.B, all research has been completed and publications are in progress. A complete workflow linking the python InVEST ecosystem services modeling tools with multi-criterion optimization algorithms in R has been developed and tested and presented to SCINet researchers. Two manuscripts on the workflow and testing are in progress (2.B.1). The LTAR Regionalization Project has completed the first sets of network-wide regionalizations for environment, cropping patterns, livestock systems, and human dimensions, and a special issue for the journal Landscape Ecology is in progress (2.B.2).
Accomplishments
Review Publications
Lange, M.J., Silva, L.H., Zambon, M.A., Soder, K.J., Brito, A. 2024. Feeding alfalfa- or red clover-grass mixture baleage: Effect on milk yield and composition, ruminal fermentation and microbiota taxa relative abundance, and nutrient utilization in dairy cows. Journal of Dairy Science. 107(4):2066-2086. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2023-23836.
Jaramillo, D.M., Soder, K.J., Blount, A., Dubeux, J., Harrison, S. 2024. Nutritive value and forage accumulation of a black oat germplasm in northeastern United States. Agrosystems, Geosciences & Environment. https://doi.org/10.1002/agg2.20484.
Kammerer, M., Iverson, A.L., Li, K., Goslee, S.C. 2024. Not just crop or forest: an integrated land cover map for agricultural and natural areas. Earth System Science Data. 11(1):137. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-02979-w.
Gardezi, M., Abuayyash, H., Adler, P.R., Alvez, J.P., Anjum, R., Raju Badireddy, A., Brugler, S., Carcamo, P., Clay, D., Dadkhah, A., Emery, M., Faulkner, J.W., Joshi, B., Joshi, D.R., Hameed Khan, A., Koliba, C., Kumari, S., Mcmaine, J., Merrill, S., Mitra, S., Musayev, S., Oikonomou, P.D., Pinder, G., Prutzer, E., Rathore, J., Ricketts, T., Rizzo, D.M., Ryan, B.E., Sahraei, M., Schroth, A.W., Turnbull, S., Zia, A. 2024. The role of living labs in cultivating inclusive and responsible innovation in precision agriculture. Agricultural Systems. 216:103908. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2024.103908.
Hatungimana, E., Darby, H.M., Soder, K.J., Ziegler, S.E., Brito, A.F., Kucek, L.K., Riday, H., Brummer, C. 2024. Assessing forage research and education needs of organic dairy farms in the United States. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. 39:1-10. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170523000455.