With the summer season drawing to a close, members of the UMass community gathered at the University’s research farm to share presentations of their varied agricultural research projects.
Reflecting the growing importance of the University to local farms and the agriculture industry, especially after this difficult summer of rain, the event saw its largest turnout in a decade.
NEARLY 100 GUESTS AND PRESENTERS RODE IN TRACTOR-PULLED WAGONS TO 12 DIFFERENT RESEARCH SITES ON THE GROUNDS OF THE UMASS CROP AND ANIMAL RESEARCH AND EDUCATION FARM IN SOUTH DEERFIELD.
Participants included students and faculty from the Stockbridge School of Agriculture and the Plant Biology Department, as well as students who had just completed paid internships doing research on the UMass campus over summer. Student interns came from two competitive research programs offered by the University.
The Research and Extension Experiences for Undergraduates (REEU) Program is a collaboration between Stockbridge and the UMass Extension Fruit Team offering students training in technology-enhanced agricultural sciences, supporting and promoting local sustainable food production systems.
The Summer Scholars Program is hosted by the Center for Agriculture, Food & the Environment (CAFÉ), and provides opportunities for project-based work and professional development activities that prepare students for future careers while gaining insight into the relationship between research and public education.
Faculty from UMass Extension shared wagon space with local farmers, and with representatives from the Farm Service Agency (FSA), the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and several seed companies.
THE SHOWCASED RESEARCH PROJECTS WERE AS VARIED AS THE PARTICIPANTS, AND REPRESENT THE BROAD RANGE OF INNOVATIVE TOPICS PURSUED BY RESEARCHERS IN THE UMASS COMMUNITY.
Professor Stephen Herbert showed the vegetable crops that grow most successfully underneath field-mounted solar panels, along with ideal spacing and shade conditions, allowing farmers to maximize two crop production cycles in the same space.
UMass Student Farm Manager Amanda Brown and her students discussed the success of their crops grown during the year-long sequence of Student Farm Management courses coveted by Sustainable Food & Farming majors at the Stockbridge School. Much of their produce is bought by UMass Dining and served in the University’s four dining commons.
Dorna Sadat showed an experiment in progress that will measure the amount of biomass produced by three different cover crops, as well as the amount of Daikon radish that would be grown this Fall after termination of the three different cover crop conditions.
Emelia Kusi explained a study looking at the role played by pollen in the transmission of disease in bumble bees. Interestingly, there is one kind of pollen, with a sharp shape that may act to pierce and destroy certain pathogens in the gut of the bumblebee.
Arthur Siller shared the frequent damage done to forage crops by extreme summer heat. Knowing that climate change will accelerate this trend, he introduced us to a new type of crabgrass from the southern U.S. It has natural resistance to extreme heat and could serve as an alternative forage crop feeding farm animals in New England.
Stockbridge Professor Masoud Hashemi promoted the use of okra and safflower as cover crops with dual use. Not only does their strategically timed termination improve soil health for the next crops planted there, but the cover crop itself can be harvested either as okra—a vegetable with antioxidant and blood sugar stabilization properties, or as saffron—the most expensive spice retailing for $10-$20 per gram.
UMass Extension professor Sue Scheufele, who also organized and emceed the event, served guests sliced cucumbers from each of 10 conditioned growing groups. By using different cultivars of cucumber and applying different treatments and strategies, Scheufele hopes to mitigate the effects of air and soil borne diseases.
Kelly Allen is engaged in a similar project to track the epidemiology of Basil downy mildew (BDM) disease, which threatens sweet basil crops worldwide. Allen’s research tracks the occurrence of new pathotypes and examines how plant-pathogen interactions at the molecular level result in plant resistance or susceptibility to BDM.
Maggie Ng walked the audience through rows of lettuce and tomato grown in a multiplicity of experimental conditions, including different cultivars of plant, mulch treatments, and shade treatments, and the interactions of these factors. At harvest, she’ll measure produce yield, but also taste quality, looking to identify the ideal growing conditions for each crop.
Vishnu Jayaprakash summarized a collaboration with a pesticide company to determine the ideal methods for spraying their products. Tactics address such factors as wind speed, spray volume, width of application, and efficiency of different spray patterns. The goal is to reduce overall pesticide use by improving spray coverage quality.
Plant Biology professor Madelaine Bartlett explained the origins and domestication of the corn plant that we know today. To demonstrate her work with plant genetics she described a gene that when “knocked out” causes the plant to produce twice as much seed. In situations where a corn plant has been developed to be resistant to insects, drought, or temperature, her technique could assist in the propagation of corn seed with these desired features.
Microbiology graduate student David Ahlberg stood in a different corn field, where he had planted sorghum, a plant that helps to control nitrogen loss in the soil biome around it. By intercropping sorghum with corn plants, the corn benefits from the lasting presence of nitrogen in its soil.
The legacy of Levi Stockbridge—the first to apply the scientific method to agricultural production, is alive and well at UMass Amherst, ranked #1 in the U.S. and #5 in the world for Best Agricultural Sciences Universities.
CURRENT RESEARCH AT STOCKBRIDGE SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE FOCUSES ON THEMES SUCH AS SUSTAINABILITY, REDUCTION OF INPUTS LIKE WATER AND PESTICIDE, IMPROVEMENT OF CROP YIELD AND QUALITY, AND A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF HOW MICROBIOMES IN SOIL AFFECT GROWTH FACTORS IN FARMING.
UMass students can join ongoing research projects like these or can run their own independent research projects under faculty supervision.