We have research projects in several aspects of sustainability of production systems management and landscape design.
With funding from USDA, DoE, SunGrant, and EPA, we explore options to improve both landscape placement of cropping systems and management of these systems in the NE and Midwest of the United States and in locations around the world.
Student work includes the PhD of Virginia Pravia, Debasish Saha, Rachel Rozum, Amanda Burton, and Curt McConnell, and the MSc of Maria Laura Cangiano and Allison Koehle. For example, Virginia's research focused on the sustainability of crop-pastures rotations, particularly in no-till crop-pasture rotations in Uruguay. Crops include soybean, sorghum and other annual crops and the pastures are typically composed of fescue, white and red clover, and birdsfoot trefoil. Her research focused on using 13C and 15N dual labeling of residues to trace their fate in soils with different carbon saturation level.
We also collaborate with colleagues at University of Sassari (Italy) studying carbon and nitrogen cycling in (1) a silvo-arable-pastoral system that includes annual Mediterranean pastures, cork oak woodlands, and vineyards in a mosaic ecosystem in the Berchidda Long Term Observatory (NE of Sardinia), and (2) intensively managed dairy systems in Arborea (W of Sardinia), an area of formerly sandy marshes that were reclaimed from the Mediterranean Sea in the first half of the 20th century.