Prioritize perennial grain development for sustainable food production and environmental benefits
Lee DeHaan, Lead Scientist for the Kernza Domestication Program at The Land Institute, and three other Lead Scientists at the organization collaborated with 28 global research partners working with perennial…
Assessing effective mechanical and chemical strategies for managing Eucosma giganteana (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) in the perennial oilseed crop, Silphium integrifolium (Asteraceae: Heliantheae)
The Land Institute’s Crop Protection Ecology and Perennial Oilseeds teams published a paper assessing the most functional methods for managing Eucosma moth (Eucosma giganteana), a pest that specializes in and commonly…
Perennial intermediate wheatgrass accumulates more soil organic carbon than winter wheat – a model assessment
Perennial plants are known to add more biomass to soils when compared to annual plants, as evidenced by the rate of carbon accumulation in grassland ecosystems, but less research has…
Photosynthetic capacity, canopy size and rooting depth mediate response to heat and water stress of annual and perennial grain crops
Climate-resilient crops are becoming increasingly desired as global climate patterns continue to shift. This paper looks at the ability of perennial grains to adapt to warmer and drier growing conditions…
David Pimentel consistently promoted perennial grains as the future of agriculture
Authors Tim Crews and Sienna Polk pay homage to influential entomologist and Cornell University professor David Pimentel, who was widely known for his numerous studies on the energetics of traditional…
Adaptation of pathogens to their local plant host, Silphium integrifolium, along a precipitation gradient
Featuring five researchers from The Land Institute, this manuscript documents the prevalence of plant pathogens associated with human-induced changes to the planet’s climate and ecosystems, with the perennial prairie plant…
Nitrate leaching losses and the fate of 15N fertilizer in perennial intermediate wheatgrass and annual wheat — A field study
Recent research in ecology illustrates the advantage that perennial grains like Kernza (intermediate wheatgrass) possess in reducing nitrate leaching when compared to popular annual grain crops like wheat, as the…
Toward plant breeding for multicrop systems
Program leads from the Legume and Crop Stewardship Programs at The Land Institute released a paper detailing the ability of diverse cropping systems to address critical environmental issues connected to modern…
Nutritional quality of Onobrychis viciifolia (Scop.) seeds: A potentially novel perennial pulse crop for human use
Researchers from the Legume and Crop Stewardship Programs at The Land Institute collaborated with Turkish research partners to release this publication documenting the potential of sainfoin, a perennial legume, as…
A social perennial vision for the North American Great Plains rooted in the resilience of a natural system-inspired agriculture
In the 2022 book Creating Resilient Landscapes in an Era of Climate Change, a shift to natural systems agriculture, which is modeled by indigenous agricultural practices and the diverse, perennial mixtures found in prairie ecosystems,…
Perennial groundcovers: an emerging technology for soil conservation and the sustainable intensification of agriculture
Integrating perennial groundcovers (PGC) — sometimes referred to as living mulches or perennial cover crops — into annual cash-crop systems could address root causes of bare-soil practices that lead to…
Challenges and Opportunities in Managing Diseases in No-Till Farming Systems
Abstract Under NT management, there are several pathogens that often increase, such as Rhizoctonia solani and Fusarium spp., or decrease, such as Gaeumannomyces graminis and Pratylenchus neglectus. While NT farming…