Projects

Well, fieldwork is all but done for the project, and we’re starting to dismantle the meteorological towers we installed over two years ago! We’ll make sure to post some of that data as we start analyzing it this fall

Wyoming Kernza harvest, and showing some Kernza at the University of Wyoming research station field day! We harvest and thresh our small plots by hand so we can get better estimates of biomass and yield across a whole field

Great turnout for our Kernza Wyoming Farm Tour - We were joined by folks from the University of Wyoming, The Land Institute, USDA, Mad Ag, NRCS, and Odell Brewing Co! Thanks to everyone who helped lead soil health and plant physiology research demos, and especially to Monte Lerwick at Homestead Acres Ag for sharing with us his Kernza fields and his extensive wisdom of growing perennials on the windy high plains.

We’re measuring wheat and Kernza root areas this summer – this will help us understand how and where these crops get their water from. Also, here are some roots from our rhizosphere soil sampling!

First soil sampling of the season! The Kernza is looking green and happy, 🤞 that it keeps raining. We’re measuring soil density this week: lighter soil has more pores, which are habitat for soil life (🐛 🪱 🦠 🍄) and store water in the soil.

We’re analyzing phospholipid fatty acids in soils! Different microbial groups have differently structured fatty acids in their cell membranes, which can show us how microbial communities differ between soils. For example, fungi are particularly sensitive to disturbance, so avoiding things like tillage can help increase fungi in the soil, which in turn helps stabilize soils and protect organic matter 🦠 🧫 🥼.

I’m…not sure what to caption this picture. I found this digging through old photo’s, but that is Kernza that I’m holding, so……….enjoy?

We had our second annual meeting today! We presented on some of our progress to date and got to meet with some of our future collaborators at the Fort Collins USDA ARS as well as some interested growers from CO!

Over winter break I got to help teach a soil science workshop in Nepal through funding from the UW Center for Global Studies and with Biloba Organic! It was a blast, I’m constantly impressed by Nepali students’ enthusiasm and knowledge about all things ag.

I used this machine 💻 to measure enzymes 🦠 in the soil 🪴 I collected last summer🌞! We mix soil with special substances that fluoresce when they are broken down by enzymes in the soil, then measure that fluorescence using this machine.