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…
An Aridamerican model for agriculture in a hotter, water scarce world
Societal Impact Statement Climate change is dramatically restructuring agriculture and damaging crops, food security, and human health, especially in deserts. To radically redesign food systems to buffer against climatic disruptions,…
Cover crop mixture expression is influenced by nitrogen availability and growing degree days
Abstract Cover crop mixtures can provide multiple ecosystem services but provisioning of these services is contingent upon the expression of component species in the mixture. From the same seed mixture,…
Abiotic and biotic context dependency of perennial crop yield
Perennial crops in agricultural systems can increase sustainability and the magnitude of ecosystem services, but yield may depend upon biotic context, including soil mutualists, pathogens and cropping diversity. These biotic…
New Food Crop Domestication in the Age of Gene Editing: Genetic, Agronomic and Cultural Change Remain Co-evolutionarily Entangled
The classic domestication scenario for grains and fruits has been portrayed as the lucky fixation of major-effect “domestication genes.” Characterization of these genes plus recent improvements in generating novel alleles…