Video & Audio Library

The Land Institute’s Perennial Legumes research technician, Spencer Barriball, brings us deep into TLI’s research plots to show us some of the intermediate wheatgrass + perennial legume intercropping experiments his team is working on. The goals of the perennial legumes research program are to expand agronomic knowledge about these dual-purpose intercroppoing systems (i.e. row spacing, harvest timing, nitrogen balance) that produce grain for humans and forage for livestock and to develop a long-term collaborative domestication strategy to improve sainfoin seed yield and nutritional quality through a combination of breeding, agronomy, food science, and commercialization efforts.

The Land Institute’s Dr. Lee DeHaan, lead scientist for Kernza® perennial grain, and Tessa Peters, our commercialization manager give an introductory presentation on the development and commercialization of Kernza®.

The Land Institute’s Director of Ecosphere Studies, Dr. Aubrey Streit Krug, takes us through a two-part practice of following the roots around us belowground to learn about the soils we stand on today and to retrace our memories and rediscover the soils of our past. Let us know where this took you and what you find there in the comments.

The Land Institute’s Perennial Wheat research technician, Dr. Piyush Labhsetwar, walks us through the journey plant DNA must take in order to be sequenced to accelerate the breeding program. The Perennial Wheat program at TLI creates hybrids made from crossing annual wheat species (including bread and durum wheat) with wheatgrass species with the long-term goal of developing an economically viable perennial wheat variety in the next 10-20 years.

The Land Institute’s Director of Ecosphere Studies, Dr. Aubrey Streit Krug, takes us into Land Institute research plots to explore the diverse patterns of life growing around us through the perspective of leaves. Pick up a leaf; what do you see?

The Land Institute’s Perennial Oilseeds research technician, Sydney Schiffner, walks us through a day in the life of her program. The Perennial Oilseeds team is domesticating Silphium integrifolium, an oilseed crop in the sunflower family, with the goal of having perennial silphium partially replace annual oilseed crops such as sunflower, canola, and soy.

Dr. Ebony Murrell, The Land Institute’s lead scientist for the Crop Protection Ecology research program, discusses her work developing integrated pest management solutions for perennial grain insect pests and diverse cropping systems to improve overall plan health and biological control.

The Land Institute’s Director of Ecosphere Studies, Aubrey Streit Krug, invites you to join her for an experiential learning activity to meet and visit with the perennials in a place you love. For Aubrey, it’s Pediomelum esculentum on the Wauhob Prairie. Where did this practice take you, and what perennials did you meet?

Dr. Kathryn Turner, who leads The Land Institute’s Crop Protection Genetics research program, discusses her work dealing with and combating virus epidemics within our Silphium breeding populations.

The Land Institute’s Crop Protection Ecology (CPE) research technician, Edy Chérémond, walks us through how the CPE team works to achieve their programmatic goals. The mission of CPE is to determine how different crop management practices synergistic relationships in diverse cropping systems can be employed to successfully increase beneficial insects and manage crop pests in perennial grains.

The Land Institute’s Soil Ecology research technician, James Bowden, braves the Kansas weather to walk us through the research focuses of the program. Working cross-functionally with all of our research programs, the Soil Ecology team at TLI looks at how diverse plantings of our perennial crops can harness ecological processes to supplant the need for commercial inputs like fertilizers and pesticides. By using models of naturally occurring plant communities, TLI researchers believe that previously unattainable levels of ecological intensification are possible with perennial polycultures.

At The Land Institute, perennial sorghum research technician, Megan Gladbach, takes us behind the scenes and underneath the glow of LED lights in the perennial sorghum wing of one our greenhouses, where she shares some background and updates on the program. The Land Institute is currently selecting for perennial growth habit and grain productivity in diverse environments in the United States and several African countries, including Uganda, Mali, and Kenya, with the goal of developing commercially viable varieties that could produce repeated, sufficient grain harvests without re-sowing.