Agronomy

Farmers often face tough decisions about how much nitrogen to apply to corn, especially when spring weather disrupts pre-plant fertilizer plans. New University of Minnesota research significantly improves a tool that farmers can use to guide these decisions. 
 

Access to African crops is important to the large African community in Minnesota, but growing these vegetables can be challenging due to poor adaptation to the climate and limited seed availability. To address this, University of Minnesota students formed the Community Plant Breeding Team and partnered with community members to develop adapted plant varieties. 

Corn tar spot is a new disease causing significant yield loss in the United States. The lack of information about the pathogen and epidemiology of the disease — which was first reported in the U.S. in 2015 and has since spread to multiple states, including Minnesota in 2019 — has made it difficult to diagnose and treat properly.

A new tool developed by a University of Minnesota research team allows farmers to create a budget balance sheet of any nitrogen reduction plans and see the economic and environmental cost, return and margins, all customized to fields under their management.

Researchers hope to make the new test technology commercially available to agronomic professionals across the United States by the end of 2021.