Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:We demonstrated our project at multiple events, and target audiences include growers, crop consultants, industry agronomists, representatives of commodity groups (i.e., Idaho Barley Commission and Idaho Wheat Commission), graduate students, researchers, and the general public. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?3 Ph.D. students are working on agronomy, crop ecophysiology, and soil health as their dissertation projects. 1 undergraduate worked with Ph.D. students and PIs to assist with plant and soil sample collection and processing (e.g., sample grinding). 2 high-school students worked with Ph.D. students and PI to assist with experiment preparation (e.g., seedpacking for planting) and plant sample collection and processing for biomass accumulation and partitioning, grain quality, yieldcomponents, etc. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We demonstrated our project at 8 events below: Cereal-pea intercropping systems under different water regimes in organic farming. Aberdeen Potato IPM Field Day, Aberdeen, ID. August 22, 2024; Cropping system diversity. Aberdeen Twilight Tour, Aberdeen, ID. July 17, 2024; Cereal-pea intercropping systems as a profitable cropping strategy to organic transitions. Rupert Field day, July 10, 2024; Aberdeen Field Day, July 16, 2024; Tetonia Field Day, July 25, 2024. (3 presentations); Soil Health when Transitioning to Organic Production: Practices and Metrics. Kimberly R&E Center Weed Tour.June 26, 2024. Kimberly, ID; Cereal-pea intercropping systems under different water regimes in organic farming. Western Wheat Work Field Tour, Aberdeen, ID. June 18, 2024 (invited). IAMP Project Overview. Regen Ag Workshop.November 15, 2023. Twin Falls, ID.This intercropping project was highlighted and data from this study was presented due to the stakeholders present The pea intercropping practices in this project have been considered sustainable and incorporated into two projects funded by NRCS: Climate-Smart Commodities for Idaho: A Public-Private-Tribal Partnership. USDA-NRCS Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities. Total $55M(2023-2028). (also called Innovative Agriculture and Marketing Partnership, IAMP) Expanding the STAR Program across Colorado and the West. USDA-NRCS Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities. Total $25M (2023-2028). What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will finish the sample processing from the field experiment. With 3-year data (2022-2024) (especially crop yield and quality), we will be more confident in recommending intercropping practices to growers. We will continue to work with organic growers for on-farm trials of intercropping practices in southern Idaho. For economic analyses, we will gather updated data on barley, wheat, and pea prices and fertilizer prices (both conventionaland organic), from which production costs for each treatment in 2022-2024will be estimated. We will evaluate themarketability of produced barley, peas, and wheat, including details on the local market structure, yield variability functionsbased on field data for 2022-2024and price (grains/peas, fertilizer) variability functions based on 5-year historical data, economic returns analysis for each treatment that accounts for variability in yields, grain/pea prices, fertilizer prices.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Crop producers need robust agronomic tools to achieve high productivity with limitedwater availability while sustaining limited soil resources in organic farming. This project adds to this toolset by focusing on producer-relevant response variables such as crop yield and quality, water use, soil fertility and health, and farming profitability for organic production systems of cereal-pea intercropping. This project also intensifies and diversifies cropping systems for crops critical to Idaho's and the region's economy. Results from this project will highlight the benefits of an organic production system that increases overall crop productivity, enhances soil fertility and health, and improves crop resilience to drought stress, by adding structural and functional diversities to agroecosystems. Objective 1: Understand the effects of cereal-pea intercropping systems on crop productivity, soil health and fertility, and enhanced diversity of crops and soil microbes under well-watered and drought-stressed conditions during the organic transition. The third-year field experiment was successfully established and harvested as we proposed. Plant and soil samples have been collectedfor crop growth and productivity as well as soil health and fertility for 2024 and are being processed. Soil greenhouse gasemissions were measured during the 2024 growing season. Wheat grain yield of 2023 was not affected by cropping systems or water regimes. There were slight differences in barley grain yield in 2023: 75%barly+50%pea under well-watered conditions produced greater yield than 75%barley+75%pea under well-watered conditions and monocropping barley under drought stress. These results are very different from grain yields in the first year (2022).It could be due to the soil residual nutrients from oat green manures in 2020 and 2021 have been depleted in the second growing season. We are looking forwardto results from the third year with more soil nutrient depletion in monocropping treatments, and intercropping treatments ofhigh pea stands may exhibit superiority to monocropping cereals. Whole-plant biomass nutritive values of 2022 were greatly impacted by cropping systems. Cropping systems with high pea stands (e.g., monocropping peas) had greater crude protein concentrations in the biomass, whereas cropping systems with high stands of small grains (e.g., monocropping wheat and barley) had greater fiber concentrations. Objective 2: Involve undergraduate and graduate students in working on the project and include the project in course materials. We have involved 1 undergraduate and 3 Ph.D. students working on this project. Objective 3: Determine the overall economic return of intercropping production under irrigated and dryland conditions during organic transition and on organic farms and transfer findings from the project to stakeholders and the public via a robust extension and outreach plan. Some project information has been added to theproposed webpage(https://www.croppingsystems.org/), and more information will be updated this fall. We demonstrated our project to stakeholders and the public at 8 events.A workshop was hosted during the Magic Valley Soil Health Forum to discuss intercropping practices on February 12, 2024. Attended producers talked about their implementation of pea-small grain and alfalfa-grass intercropping. Discussion afterward generated some interest in cereal-pea intercropping.Participants of our extension events have become more aware of the option of cereal-peaintercropping systems, especially in organic transition and organic farming. Three on-farm trials were implemented for intercropping pulses and small grains in Fairfield, Shoshone, and Twin Falls in southern Idaho. Each utilized fields with low water inputs and low soil fertility values. The producer in Twin Falls had 2 T/A yields of feed barley + pea, which will replace grazable alfalfa as fall forage for his cows. The other two producers had poor stands due to a late frost in June.

Publications

• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Liang, X., Z. Kayler, L. Schott, P. Hatenzbuehler, N. Ghimire. Cereal-pea intercropping systems under different water regimes during the organic transition. ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meetings. St. Louis, MO, October 29-November 1, 2023.

Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience:We demonstrated our project at multiple events, and target audiences include growers, crop consultants, industry agronomists, representatives of commodity groups (i.e., Idaho Barley Commission and Idaho Wheat Commission), graduate students, researchers, and the general public. Changes/Problems:We collected soil cores/root samples from 6 depths: 0-6, 6-12, 12-18, 18-24, 24-30, and 30-36 inches in 2022as we proposed in the proposal.When processing the root samples, we noticed thatthere was almost no root at 30-36 inches. We contacted the program leader to confirm that root samples at 30-36 inches are not critical. So root sampling at 30-36 inches was excluded in 2023. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?3Ph.D. students have been recruited to work on agronomy,crop ecophysiology, and soil health as their dissertation projects. 1 undergraduate worked with Ph.D. students and PIs to assist with plant and soil sample collection andprocessing (e.g., sample grinding). 2 high-school students have been working with Ph.D. studentsand PIto assist with experiment preparation (e.g., seed packing for planting)and plant sample collection andprocessing for biomass accumulation and partitioning, grain quality, yield components, etc. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We demonstrated our project at 11events below: Cereal intercropping systems under well-watered and drought-stressed conditions. Aberdeen Potato IPM field day. August 16, 2023. Cereal intercropping systems under well-watered and drought-stressed conditions. Rupert Field Day, July 11, 2023; Idaho Falls Field Day, July 19, 2023; Aberdeen Field Day, July 20, 2023; Soda Springs Field Day, July 25, 2023; Tetonia Field Day, July 25, 2023. (5 presentations) Cereal-pea intercropping systems in organic farming. UI Pest Management Research Tours, Kimberly, ID, June 28, 2023. Cereal intercropping systems under well-watered and drought-stressed conditions. UI Pest Management Research Tours, Aberdeen, ID, June 27, 2023. Cereal-pea intercropping systems as a profitable cropping strategy to organic transitions and soil health. Magic Valley Organic Field Day, Buhl, ID, June 13, 2023. Cereal intercropping systems under well-watered and drought-stressed conditions. Wheat Field Day. Hermiston, OR, June 12, 2023. (invited) Cereal-pea intercropping systems as a profitable cropping strategy to organic transitions and soil health. USDA NIFA: OREI & ORG Project Directors Meeting. Washington, D.C., April 19-20, 2023. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue our field experiment for the third year. With 2-year data (2022-2023) (especially crop yield and quality),we will be more confident in recommending intercropping practices to growers in 2024. We will work with 3 organic growers for on-farm trials of intercropping practices in southern Idaho. For economic analyses, we will gather updated data on barley, wheat, and pea prices and fertilizer prices(both conventional and organic), from which production costs for each treatment in 2022 and 2023 will be estimated. We will evaluate the marketability of produced barley, peas, and wheat, including details on the local market structure,yield variability functions based on field data for 2022 and 2023 and price (grains/peas, fertilizer) variability functions based on 5-year historical data, economic returns analysis for each treatment that accounts for variability in yields, grain/pea prices, fertilizer prices.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Crop producers need robust agronomic tools to achieve high productivityunder low water availabilities while sustaining limited soil resources in organic farming. This project adds to this toolset byfocusing on producer-relevant response variables such as crop yield andquality, water use, soil fertility and health, andfarming profitability for organic production systems of cereal-pulse intercropping. This project also intensifies anddiversifies cropping systems for crops critical to Idaho's and the region's economy. Results from this project will highlight thebenefits of an organic production system that increases overall crop productivity, enhances soil fertility and health, andimproves crop resilience to drought stress, by adding structuraland functional diversitiestoagroecosystems. Objective 1: Understand the effects of cereal-pea intercropping systems on crop productivity, soil health and fertility, and enhanced diversity of crops and soil microbes under well-watered and drought-stressed conditions during the organic transition. The second-year field experiment was successfully established as we proposed. Plant and soil samples have been collected for cropgrowth and productivity as well as soil health and fertility for 2023 and are being processed. Soil greenhouse gas emissions were measured intensively during the 2023 growing season. We are finalizing sample and data analyses for 2022. The grain yield of monocropping wheat in 2022 wasgreater than intercropping treatments of 50%Wheat+50%Pea and 75%Wheat+50%Pea under drought stress. Under well-watered conditions, monocropping wheat producedthe highest grain yield followed by 75%Wheat+25%Pea and 75%Wheat+50%Pea. Barley grain yield under well-watered conditions was greater than drought-stressed conditions in 2022. Among the intercropping treatments,monocroppingbarley produced a greater yield than 50%Barley+50%Pea, 75%barley+75%pea, and 75%barley+50%pea, while no significant difference was found between these three intercropping treatments.Wheat end-use quality (e.g., flour protein, flour yield, and cookie diameter) was not significantly affected by the water regime or cropping system.According to the first-year results, higher intercropping seeding rates of small grains(i.e., 75%cereal+50%pea, and 75%cereal+75%pea) would not return higher cereal yields or quality. Itcould be due to high soil residual nutrients from oat green manures in 2020 and 2021. We are looking forward toresults from years 2 and 3 with more soil nutrient depletion in monocropping treatments, and intercropping treatments of high pea seeding rates may exhibit superiority to monocropping cereals. We also noticed that pea plants grew better than small grains in 2023, probably due to the cool spring that favored pulse crop growth. We expect to see high pea yields this year and large yearly variability. Objective 2: Involve undergraduate and graduate students in working on the project and include the project in course materials. We have involved 1 undergraduate and 3 Ph.D. students working on this project. This project has been incorporated into the chapter on organic farming in PLSC407 Field Crop Production in spring 2023. Objective 3: Determine the overall economic return of intercropping production under irrigated and dryland conditions during organic transition and on organic farms and transfer findings from the project to stakeholders and the public via a robustextension and outreach plan. We demonstrated our project to stakeholders and the public at 11events. The proposed webpage is under development (https://www.croppingsystems.org/). Participants of our extension events have become more aware of the option of cereal-pea intercropping systems, especiallyin organic transition and organic farming. Our project was highlighted in a newspaper article: UI researcher seeks to help farmers overcome a barrier in transitioning to organic. John O'Connell. Intermountain Farm & Ranch, December 1, 2022. https://www.postregister.com/farmandranch/crops/ui-researcher-seeks-to-help-farmers-overcome-a-barrier-in-transitioning-to-organic/article_9084b772-718d-11ed-9265-af93b85772a5.html For economic analyses, we have gathered data on barley, pea, and wheat seed prices as well as fertilizer prices. We have also developed aninitial spreadsheet-based framework for calculating revenues (yield x price) for each treatment based on 2022 field data of average yields.Our team has discussed with growers the potential marketability of barley/pea and wheat/pea harvested simultaneously and sold for use in organic animal feed or soups.

Publications

• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Lee, H., X. Liang, Z. Kayler. Crop growth of cereal-pea intercropping systems under drought stress. ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meetings. Baltimore, MD, November 6-9, 2022.

Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22

Outputs
Target Audience:We demonstrated our project at multiple events, and target audiences includegrowers, crop consultants, industry agronomists, representatives of commodity groups (i.e., Idaho Barley Commission and Idaho Wheat Commission), graduate students, researchers, and the general public. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?A Ph.D. student has been recruited to work on the agronomy and crop ecophysiology section of the project as her dissertation project. She has been working intensively with PIs. An undergraduate worked closely with the Ph.D. student and PIs to assist with plant and soil sample collection and processing. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We demonstrated our project at the events below: Cereal-based intercropping systems under full and deficit irrigation. Aberdeen Field Day, Aberdeen, ID, July 19, 2022; Tetonia field day, Tetonia, ID, July 27, 2022. (2 presentations) Cropping system diversity. Aberdeen Twilight Tour, Aberdeen, ID. July 13, 2022 Barley-pulse intercropping systems. Scoular Field Day, Jerome, ID, June 28, 2022 Field project updates on cereal intercropping systems. UI Pest Management Research Tours, Aberdeen, ID, June 28, 2022 Cereal-pea intercropping systems in organic transition. UI Pest Management Research Tours, Kimberly, ID, June 22, 2022 Cereal-pulse cropping systems. USDA NRCS 5 for 5 Soil Health (webinar). March 10, 2022 What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?With more complete results by the end of 2022, we can incorporate this project into course materials in spring 2023. We can also share the more solid results (e.g., crop yield and quality) with growers at meetings or workshops in fall 2022 and spring 2023.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Producers in Idaho, other western states, and across the nation need robust agronomic tools to achieve high productivity under different water availabilities while sustaining limited soil resources in organic farming. This project adds to this toolset by focusing on producer-relevant response variables such as crop yield, crop quality, water use, soil fertility and health, and farming profitability for the proposed organic production system of cereal-pulse intercropping.Thisproject also intensifies and diversifies cropping systems for crops critical to Idaho's and the region's economy. Results from this project will highlight the benefits of an organic production system that increases overall crop productivity, enhances soil fertility and health, and improves crop resilience to drought stress, by adding horizontal, vertical, structural, and functional diversity to agroecosystems. Objective 1:Understand the effects of cereal-pea intercropping systems on crop productivity, soil health and fertility, and enhanced diversity of crops and soil microbes under well-watered and drought-stressed conditions during the organic transition. We established the field experimentfor the first year as we proposed. Plant and soil samples havebeen collected for crop growth and productivity as well as soil health and fertility. Soil greenhouse gas emissions were measured at the end of the growing season. We focused our efforts on CO2 since the soils were dry at this time and we did not detect noticeable increases in concentrations of CH4 or N2O. Soil gas flux in full irrigation plots was greater than the deficit, except for monocropping barley where sampling resolution was too small to distinguish the water treatment. The intercropping of cerealsat 75% with peas at 50% produced the largest soil CO2 flux, suggesting a higher metabolic activity for these plots. The majority of weeds were common lambsquarters, and weed biomass from plots of wheat-pea intercropping and monocropping wheat was greater than treatments of 75%barley+25%pea and 75%balrey+75%pea.Weeds were sampled early in the growing season shortly afterirrigation treatments were initiated, so weedbiomass was not strongly affected by irrigation treatment. Significant differences in normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) were found at stages of stem elongation and heading, and monocropping barley and intercropping barley treatments with high proportions of barley (e.g., 75%barley+75%pea) usually showed greater NDVI than other treatments. Plant biomass at the heading stage was significantly affected by cereal-pea intercropping treatment, and biomass fromtreatments of 75%barley+25%pea, 75%barley+75%pea, monocropping barley, and 50%barley+50%pea was greater than monocropping wheat and pea. At this stage, biomass under full irrigation was slightly greaterthan deficit irrigation. So far, monocropping barley and barley-pea intercropping treatments have shown superiorityto monocropping and/or intercropping wheat treatments in terms of weed suppression, canopy development, and biomass production. Objective 2:Involve undergraduate and graduate students in working on the project and include the project in course materials. We have involved 1 undergraduate and 1 Ph.D. student working on this project. Objective 3:Determine the overall economic return of intercropping production under irrigated and dryland conditions during organic transition and on organic farms and transfer findings from the project to stakeholders and the public via a robust extension and outreach plan. We demonstrated our project to stakeholders and the public at 7 extension events. The proposed webpage is under development.Participants of our extension events have becomeaware of the option of cereal-pea intercropping systems in organic transition and organic farming.

Publications