Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:During this reporting period, the Project Team and Stakeholder Advisory Board met twice, in December 2021 and July 2022. The 20-member Stakeholder Advisory Board includes farmers, consultants who provide technical assistance to farmers, local and state government officials in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, agribusiness industry association representatives, a Farm Bureau representative, a land developer, soil and water conservation district representatives, and representatives from environmental organizations. The July 2022 meeting was a two-day Thriving Ag project workshop on Maryland's Eastern Shore that also included a broader group of external stakeholders from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Results have also been shared with numerous other communities of interest via conferences, webinars, extension presentations, and forums. Changes/Problems:The project has experienced some residual effects from the Covid-19 pandemic with delays in hiring in years 1 and 2 causing delays in project work in year 3. The project team was able to have its first in-person meeting with stakeholders in July 2022 since the project kickoff meeting in February 2020, and so things are starting to pick back up with less delays than years 1 and 2. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Tasks 1 and 2: Scenario Building with Stakeholders. Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars on the project participate in the project team meetings and meetings with the Stakeholder Advisory Board (SAB). Through this participation, they can observe and learn first-hand how a large transdisciplinary project operates, how team members from different disciplines collaborate with each other, how the project team and SAB work together, and how they should function as team members. Several graduate students on the project participated in the Thriving Ag Eastern Shore Workshop in July 2022. Interns were hired at the Hughes Center, Penn State, and Virginia Tech during summer 2022 for research on the project's baseline scenario. This included research on policy analysis, climate change projections, demographic projections, agricultural production, and local food in the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Task 5: Market Analysis for Local and Organic Products. The Task 5 team has Ph.D. students Josh Reed and Chiu-Lin Huang working on the project. He is working closely with co-PIs Jaenicke and Liu, mainly on economic modelling and large dataset processing during this reporting period. Reed and Huang presented a poster at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) meeting in August 2022. Task 7: Field-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. Raziel A. Ordoñez, a postdoctoral scholar, has been actively engaged in the project since October 2020. Zack Sanders is completing his Ph.D. in Soil Science and Biogeochemistry and is actively engaged in the project as a student and research technician. Zoelie Rivera-Ocasio, a graduate assistant, has also been involved in the project and is learning many new skills and improving her writing skills by writing proposals. Her project, Understanding the Effects of Cover Crops and Nutrient Management on Microbial Carbon Use Efficiency and Nitrogen Mineralization was one of the proposals that were approved for funding by the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) Administrative Council. The Thriving Ag project has created opportunities for two students at Virginia Tech, Soni Ghimire (master's student) and Unius Arinaitwe (Ph.D. student), to develop knowledge about nutrient management. Ghimire attended a workshop on Cycles Agriculture Models online via Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. Task 8: Watershed-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. A Ph.D. Student, Marali Kalra, continues to work on the project. The project has provided the opportunity to network with researchers from a variety of sustainable agriculture-related fields. Task 9: Collaborating for Effective Agricultural Technical Assistance. Dan Read, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, learned new skills in spatial temporal modeling. Task 10: Regional-Scale Nutrient Flow Analysis. The Thriving Ag project has provided Ph.D. student at Penn State, Paniz Mohammadpour, with the opportunity to collaborate with and network professionals in the field. She has been completing an internship over summer 2022. During her internship, she has learned new tools for hydrologic and hydraulic modeling (Arc Hydro GIS and HECRAS 2D tools) at the watershed scale. Using these tools, she has modeled and analyzed basin paths and rainfall-runoff for six watersheds in Iowa. These models are comparable with the SWAT model that the Task 8 team uses for watershed modeling and management in the Thriving Ag project. Task 11: Land-Use Modeling. The Thriving Ag project has provided training for a Ph.D. student at Ohio State, Junyi Hua, on data collection and econometric land use modeling. Hua is planning to graduate from Ohio State with a Ph.D. within the next year. The team is beginning to onboard a new Ph.D. student at Ohio State, Hongxi Zhao, to assist once Junyi Hua graduates. Task 12: Adaptive Management Sites. The project has provided learning opportunities and training for both a Ph.D. student, Madeline Luthard, and a research technician, Brosi Bradley. Luthard is learning about isotope methods and has been able to educate individuals on soil health through programs at Penn State's Arboretum and annual Ag Progress Days event. Bradley is learning how to use a new N oxide analyzer tool that will help assist with project research. Kaye, Bradley, and Luthard mentor numerous students on their team. MaryBeth Gavin, Megan Kownurko, Heer Patel, and Sarah Brown are Penn State undergraduate students who are currently helping with research and being mentored in their lab. Dana Sanchez, a junior environmental resource management major at Penn State, worked with Kaye's research team learning various aspects of both field research at the Cover Crop Cocktails site, as well as assisting with laboratory work to understand the biogeochemical assumptions of the Nitrogen Decision Support Tool. Kaye recently hired a new postdoctoral scholar, Michael Gomez, who joined the project team in August 2022. Task 13: Economic Simulations and Modeling. The Thriving Ag project has provided the team with an opportunity to hire three interns to analyze trends in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia for the project's baseline (business as usual) scenario. The project has also been a learning opportunity for Ph.D. students Asif Rasool, Sadikshya Sharma and Nate Hu, and Zeya Zhang, a postdoctoral scholar. Rasool has learned about coding techniques and clustering methods. Sadikshya Sharma has been able to learn how to use the Penn State Roar supercomputer and has completed training. She has presented at the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association (NAREA) 2022 annual meeting and networked with professionals. Zeya Zhang has learned new data analysis methods while researching futures market data on dairy products. Nate Hu has learned about the REAP model and attended an online workshop on general equilibrium modeling. Tasks 14 and 15: Education and Extension Plans. The project provided multiple opportunities to two Ph.D. students, Parmveer Singh and Sharmistha Basak, to gain training on conducting transdisciplinary research. Singh was able to attend the SAS Project Directors' meeting in Kansas City in April 2022. This meeting provided an opportunity for Singh to learn from other SAS projects from across the country about how the education and outreach teams can better contribute to project goals. The meeting provided opportunities to network and co-learn with other SAS projects. Singh presented a research paper at the 2022 annual Soil and Water Conservation Society conference. This was his first professional conference which not only provided an opportunity to network with conservation professionals from across the country, but also provided an opportunity to learn new cutting-edge ideas to be used in the Thriving Ag project. Task 16: External Evaluation. Edem Avemegah, a Ph.D. student at Utah State University, is learning new skills by conducting survey research, cleaning data, and creating reports. He has also gained experience writing manuscripts and will be using project data for his dissertation. Another master's student has been helping with annual evaluation reports for the project. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Tasks 1 and 2: Scenario Building with Stakeholders. An all-hands meeting in December 2021 and Thriving Ag Eastern Shore Workshop in July 2022 engaged critical communities of interest represented as members of the Stakeholder Advisory Board and external stakeholders in the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. The research team presented project research findings at both the December 2021 all-hands meeting and the July 2022 Eastern Shore workshop. Task 5: Market Analysis for Local and Organic Products. The Task 5 team presented their findings at the 2021 and 2022 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Annual Meetings. Task 7: Field-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. The Task 7 team met with groups of Pennsylvania farmers to discuss results on the N Decision Support Tool. Numerous extension meetings with farmers in Virginia have taken place as well. The team has also been involved in many extension webinars and have acted as guest lecturers in a few graduate student courses. Results from this team have also been disseminated at the Keystone Certified Crop Advisor Conference, the National Meeting of Agronomists Day, Juan Acatenco Teziutlán, and the Agronomy Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America International Annual Meetings. Task 8: Watershed-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. Results have been included in a journal submission to the Journal of Environmental quality, which is currently under review. Results have also been shared at the 2021 Lancaster-Lebanon Watershed Forum and Science Symposium, the 2022 Chesapeake Bay Community Research Symposium, the 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Ecological Engineering Society, the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) 2022 Annual International Meeting, and the Northeast Agricultural and Biological Engineering Conference (NABEC). Task 9: Collaborating for Effective Agricultural Technical Assistance. The Task 9 team's results have been published in PeerJ, and other manuscripts are in the works on this team's research. Results have been disseminated at webinars such as the CRC Roundtable. Outreach events for the field experiments included two events hosted by the Pennsylvania No-Till Alliance in York and Mercer counties, Pennsylvania as well as Penn State's three-day expo Ag Progress Days in Pennsylvania Furnace, Pennsylvania. Research activities at these events were conducted in collaboration with project team members at Stroud Water Research Center and the Penn State Agriculture and Environment Center. Task 10: Regional-Scale Nutrient Flow Analysis. Task 10 team members presented their findings on the nitrogen flow model at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in December 2021. They presented their primary findings of scenario analysis (cover crop and manure management) at the 2022 Chesapeake Bay Community Research Symposium and their circular ag project work findings at the ASABE 2022 Annual International Meeting. Task 10 team members have two papers related to their project research that they are working on. One paper has been submitted to the journal Environmental Science & Technology and the other paper will be submitted later in 2022. Task 12: Adaptive Management Sites. Results have been disseminated at the 2022 ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting, the 2022 Delmarva Soil Summit, the 2022 Northeast Cover Crops Council Annual Conference, the 2021 Lancaster-Lebanon Watershed Forum and Science Symposium, 2022 American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers Annual International Meeting, and via Penn State Extension webinars. Results have also been published in University of Maryland Extension Agronomy News and the Journal of Environmental Quality. Madeline Luthard disseminated information about the N Decision Support Tool at Penn State's Ag Progress Days in August 2022. She also developed a program, The Story of Soil, for children and families hosted at the Penn State Arboretum. The program educates participants on the characteristics of soil and why soil is vital to the ecosystem. Task 13: Economic Simulations and Modeling. Results from the Task 13 team have been presented at the 2021 and 2022 AEAA annual meetings, 2022 NAREA annual meeting, 2022 Southern Agricultural Economics Association (SAEA) annual meeting, and the 2022 Chesapeake Bay Community Research Symposium. Tasks 14 and 15: Education and Extension Plans. The Tasks 14 & 15 team presented a paper at the 2022 annual Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS) conference. The team also has four other paper abstracts that have been accepted for presentation at the Annual Virtual Conference of the American Evaluation Association (AEA), annual meeting of the National Association of Extension Program & Staff Development Professionals (NAEPSDP), and annual International Association for Society and Natural Resources (IASNR) virtual conference. Task 16: External Evaluation. Results from their Chesapeake Bay Watershed resident survey that assessed perceptions related to water quality and agriculture in the watershed have been shared by the Task 16 team at the 2022 International Association for Society and Natural Resources (IASNR) Conference. They also discussed the results of the survey with WERA1010, a multi-state research committee. The survey report was shared on the project website and social media. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Tasks 1 and 2: Scenario Building with Stakeholders. As a follow-up to the Thriving Ag Eastern Shore Workshop, the teams are further refining the scenarios and evaluating the details necessary to appropriately model the scenarios. The Tasks 1 & 2 team will be working with other Task Teams to evaluate their need for broader stakeholder engagement and, as necessary, facilitate building small stakeholder teams tailored to the need of individual Task teams. Additionally, Task Teams 1 & 2 intend to develop additional workshops for year 4. These workshops will be modeled on the success of the year 3 Eastern Shore Workshop, and held in Pennsylvania and Virginia, focused on convening the project team, the Stakeholder Advisory Board (SAB), and external stakeholder from those geographies to provide their insights and perspectives to the project. Tasks 3 and 4: Networks of Engaged Stakeholders. Based on the Thriving Ag Eastern Shore workshop that took place in July 2022, the project team will utilize information discussed in the breakout rooms to refine project scenarios. The plan will be to link stakeholders directly with the individual Thriving Ag project task teams based on expertise and areas of interest. This will allow more direct input from stakeholders and an opportunity for task team members to refine their research. The project scenarios will be updated based on the summer interns' work, workshop outcomes, and team investigations. Goals include expanding the discussion within the ag community on how policies will influence agricultural and environmental outcomes via outreach opportunities. Task 5: Market Analysis for Local and Organic Products. The Task 5 team plans to work on new definitions of local and rural, and how that will affect their results at the county level. The team will be looking at percentage of agricultural land indicators for an urban-rural definition and pursuing a county level analysis. They also plan to produce high-quality maps of local and organic products for use in a USDA ERS report. Task 6: Blockchain Technology. The Task 6 team will host focus groups with small-to-medium sized wholesale vegetable and fruit producers. The results will then be analyzed. The goal is to reveal where extension can help farmers gain profitability going forward using AR/blockchain technology and how to create programs going forward. The team also intends to explore a pilot project on the use of blockchain for small-to-medium producers in Pennsylvania. Task 7: Field-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. Team members will continue their work in the lab, the field, and data analysis. They are working on journal article manuscripts and upcoming conference presentations on soil texture as an ecosystem-scale control on microbial nutrient cycling and carbon use efficiency; a national-scale analysis of nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and corn production; how analytical tools can be used to predict N rates and yields; differences in soil properties and how they behave as a tool to improving modeling systems; soil characteristics, cover crops, and corn yields; and field trial nutrient management sites with and without irrigation. Task 8: Watershed-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. The Task 8 team plans to continue work on climate change and cover cropping simulations in the Susquehanna River Basin SWAT model. The team is also preparing a journal article on circular agricultural systems and another article on manure application timing. The Task 8 team's goal is to model the crop yield and water quality response of the Susquehanna River Basin under a variety of conditions, including climate change, increased BMP implementation, and urbanization. Task 9: Collaborating for Effective Agricultural Technical Assistance. The Task 9 team will run their field experiment at farmer outreach events and online, analyze data, and begin writing up results. They will submit a manuscript to the Journal of Environmental Management and finish a draft manuscript about techniques that technical assistance providers use across the adoption process. The team will generate evidence on the effectiveness of different farmer engagement techniques and produce outreach materials for the technical assistance community. Task 10: Regional-Scale Nutrient Flow Analysis. The Task 10 team will continue working on the scenario analysis and drafting a paper on it. They will also continue working on the two journal articles on nitrogen flow and circular agriculture systems. Task 11: Land-Use Modelling. The Task 11 team will continue to work on their BMP adoption paper with plans to submit to a journal before fall 2022. They are also preparing a presentation for the A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES) conference in December 2022. They plan to complete both the Ricardian land price model and an initial parcel level land use change paper for submission in Spring 2023. Another area the team would like to explore during the next reporting period is estimating what effect urbanization has on additionality. Farmers are adopting conservation practices more often without government payments, and they would like to examine how BMPs affect home prices. Task 12: Adaptive Management Sites. The Task 12 team is planning to finish and submit a N rate recommendation paper for publication, and present preliminary results on the nitrogen analysis at the 2022 ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual meeting in Baltimore. In Pennsylvania, BMPs will be implemented on the BMP catchment in fall 2022. Cover crops will be planted in the fall and, in the spring, corn will be planted with variable rate N recommendations based on the N rate recommendation paper. Data collection will continue at the Maryland field sites. The team is also planning to carry out case studies on small diversified urban farms, most of which are in the Baltimore area and may extend to the Washington, DC area. Task 13: Economic Simulations and Modeling. The Task 13 team will complete their paper on energy price increase scenarios for submission to the Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. The team will also complete a draft of a paper on dairy pricing policy and dairy price variability and submit it for publication consideration. The team will continue working on papers based on county cluster analysis, climate change impacts on livestock production, and reasons why agriculture is thriving in some Chesapeake Bay Watershed (CBW) counties and not others. The team will be presenting some of its findings at A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES) conference in December 2022. Tasks 14 and 15: Education and Extension Plans. The Tasks 14 & 15 team will be implementing an interactive model of stakeholder outreach and evaluating the outreach model. They will also be conducting interviews with stakeholders and finishing stakeholder identification, categorization, and analysis of relationships among stakeholders. The Tasks 14 & 15 team will also begin to develop potential undergraduate and graduate courses from the project. The team will develop and contribute to a community of practice (CoP) related to sustainable agriculture in urbanized landscapes. The team is also planning to conduct a survey on understanding of the project, the definition of the project, ways to engage stakeholders, and inter-team collaboration possibilities. Task 16: External Evaluation. The Task 16 team will be gathering more data on the states that were underrepresented in the 2022 survey sample for the CBW Farmer Survey. They will then update their descriptive report with the new data and present key findings to the team. They will also continue preparing annual evaluation reports for the project's Stakeholder Advisory Board and research team. The team will develop a manuscript based on their presentation at the IANSR conference.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The central hypothesis of this project is that value-added agriculture of the kind required to be economically sustainable in urbanized landscapes can be achieved while enhancing ecosystem services. The overall goal is to make this hypothesis a reality within a 25-year period, using the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (CBW) as a case study translatable to other urbanized landscapes. The project has four broad objectives and 16 tasks to achieve this goal, and the reporting here is organized by task. Tasks 1-4: Scenario Building with Stakeholders, and Networks of Engaged Stakeholders. A Thriving Ag Project All-Hands Meetings took place in December 2021. Task teams presented the key questions their research is trying to answer as well as the scenarios, models, and methods being used. The team held a two-day Thriving Ag project workshop in July 2022 on Maryland's Eastern Shore to convene the project team, the Stakeholder Advisory Board (SAB), and a broader group of external stakeholders from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The workshop helped to engage stakeholders in conversations about the project's research and scenarios. Task 5: Market Analysis for Local and Organic Products. The Task 5 team has been working on developing a practical definition of local that fits their data. A data algorithm is being used that identifies products in scanner data based on the locality of the marketing, and the team has identified the product categories of most of the locally branded sales in the CBW. The team also estimated a demand models to calculate the value of local and organic products, incorporating attributes of a region that may shift demand for local and organic products. Task 6: Blockchain Technology. The Task 6 team created a survey that was sent in fall 2021 to small-to-medium sized wholesale vegetable and fruit producers in Pennsylvania. The survey is helping the team understand how emerging blockchain technologies can enable wholesale producers to better manage sales and record keeping and earn higher premiums for their products. Another area of research is in the use of blockchain technology to provide improved decision-making environments for producers. The team has been working with a blockchain provider to develop and implement a test case and proof of concept. Task 7: Field-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. The Task 7 team continues lab work and on-farm field trials in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland to test the biogeochemical assumptions that are built into a project Nitrogen Decision Support Tool, and to refine the tool. Results are helping farmers improve their fertilizer application rate decisions and advance the development of new tools to calculate nitrogen fertilizer requirements that adjust for cover crops and soil organic matter levels. The team is also carrying out on-farm experiments to improve carbon use efficiency (CUE). Task 8: Watershed-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. The Task 8 team developed, calibrated, and validated a comprehensive Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model for the Susquehanna River Basin (SRB). The team used the SWAT model to evaluate water quality impacts of multiple manure management scenarios in the SRB based on the manureshed concept on manure application time, location and rate. The Task 8 team in collaboration with the Task 10 team is also exploring water quality implications of circular agricultural systems in the SRB with manure and compost from the basin as the nutrient source. Task 9: Collaborating for Effective Agricultural Technical Assistance. The Task 9 team recruited technical assistance providers (TAPs) to participate in a test on the effect of using visual aids on the level of farmer interest in adopting best management practices (BMPs). The test involves randomly assigning farmers to either a treatment or control group. The treatment group sees photos of BMPs while the control group does not. The team completed a related analysis of interviews with farmers. Interviews explored what farmers expect from technical assistance providers and how well they think technical assistance is currently doing in meeting their expectations. Task 10: Regional-Scale Nutrient Flow Analysis. The Task 10 team developed a regional model to analyze nitrogen flows within the CBW food production chains including agricultural and food trade with the rest of the country and world. They are in the process of adding an uncertainty analysis to this model. In collaboration with the Task 8 team, they are using their model to help assess water quality impacts of recycling nutrients using organic fertilizers in circular agricultural scenarios. Task 11: Land-Use Modeling. The Task 11 team is working with data from a 2016 survey of Pennsylvania farmers' best management practice (BMP) adoptions combined with land use data on urban development. The team is looking at the additionality of government payments in BMP adoption and how that is impacted by urbanization. The team is also using parcel-level land use change data from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to model how surrounding land use impacts urban development decisions. Using this model, they are running simulations of the impact of changing land use policy and climate conditions on land use. Task 12: Adaptive Management Sites. The Task 12 team continued field work on cover crop treatments and modeling a Cover Crop Cocktails (CCC) field site using the SWAT model. The team also continued experiments with different nitrogen rates applied to corn following cover crops. The team continued its edge-of-field monitoring studies that included surface runoff, tile drainage, and ditch drainage. The team analyzed corn and soybean yields and nitrogen response rates at their cover crop sites, using lysimeters to measure leaching and runoff weirs to measure runoff during storms. The team has preliminary data showing that cover crops increase soil fertility. Task 13: Economic Simulations and Modeling. The Task 13 team has been working with USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) to update and enhance the Regional Environment and Agriculture Programming (REAP) model. The team used the model to examine implications of energy cost shocks for revenue, prices, and output from the U.S. agricultural sector. The team developed a livestock model that covers the 13 REAP regions within the CBW and used this model to analyze the impacts of U.S. dairy pricing policy on livestock production in the CBW. The team used data envelopment analysis (DEA) to estimate how counties in the CBW are performing on environmental and economic indicators, and why some counties are doing better than others. Tasks 14 and 15: Education and Extension Plans. The Tasks 14 and 15 team carried out a stakeholder analysis to determine the stakeholders that represent the project and the information they find to be the most beneficial. At the Thriving Ag Eastern Shore Workshop in July 2022, the team led an activity with project team members and stakeholder stakeholders to understand stakeholders' information source preferences, information needs, and use of information for better planning dissemination of findings from the Thriving Ag Project. Task 16: External Evaluation. The Task 16 team finished a CBW resident survey in fall 2021. The survey was to assess perceptions related to water quality and agriculture in the watershed as a whole as well as scenarios developed by the project team. They completed a report on the CBW resident survey results which is on the project website. The team sent a related survey to CBW farmers in 2022. This survey will provide important information about what farmers in the region think about the scenarios developed by the project team, their views on urbanizing agriculture and sustainable agriculture, and current practices and attitudes about conservation practices that can inform project planning.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Ziliang Zhang, Jason P. Kaye, Brosi A. Bradley, Joseph P. Amsili, Vidya Suseela. "Cover crop functional types differentially alter the content and composition of soil organic carbon in particulate and mineral-associated fractions." Submitted to Global Change Biology.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Antonio-Ordonez, R., White, C., et al. (November 2021). Yield Gap as a Key Metric to Determining N Fertilizer Rates in Maize. Agronomy Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America International Annual Meetings, Agronomy Society of America, Salt Lake City, Utah.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
White, C., Antonio-Ordonez, R., Spargo, J. T., Arrington, K., & Kaye, J. P. (November 2021). Towards a Semi-Mechanistic Fertilizer Recommendation System That Accounts for Cover Crop Nitrogen Mineralization Dynamics. Agronomy Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America International Annual Meetings, Agronomy Society of America, Salt Lake City, Utah.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Arrington, K. and Rivera-Ocasio, Z. Webinar, Making Cover Crops Pay: Cycling Nutrients and Growing Legumes for N Production, Penn State Extension, 100 participant(s), (February 11, 2022). https://psu.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/Making+Cover+Crops+Pay+Feb.+11th+2022/1_2e4eiic4
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Ordo�ez, Raziel A. Managing nitrogen through crop services and modeling toward more sustainable maize production in Pennsylvania, USA. National Meeting of Agronomists Day, San Juan Acatenco Teziutl�n, Puebla, M�xico. (February 22, 2022).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Ordo�ez, Raziel A. Optimizing nitrogen fertilization rates in maize crops as an alternative of sustainability in times of climate change. 2nd National Congress of Sustainable Systems and 1st International Congress of Sustainable Topics. Tlapacoyan, Veracruz, Mexico (May 6, 2022)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Thomason, W.E. 2021. Nitrogen cycling from cover crops in the Mid-Atlantic USA. In International Annual Meetings Abstracts. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA, Madison, WI.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Lisenbee, W.A., Saha, A., Mohammadpour, P., Cibin, R., Kaye, J., Grady, C., and I. Chaubey. (November 19, 2021). Water Quality of Circular Agricultural Systems in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Lancaster-Lebanon Watershed Forum and Science Symposium, Elizabethtown, PA.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Gourab Saha, Arghajeet Saha, Cibin Raj, Sheri Spiegel, Peter Kleinman, Tamie Veith, Charles White, Patrick Drohan, and Teferi Tsegaye. Quantifying the Water Quality Benefits of Implementing Manureshed Concept based Manure Management in the Susquehanna River Basin. 2022 Chesapeake Bay Community Research Symposium. June 6-8, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Marali, K., & Cibin, R. (July 2022). Deriving a Soil Carbon Age Distribution from a Pool-Based Model. ASABE 2022 Annual International Meeting, Houston, TX.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Marali, K., & Cibin, R. (August 2022). A Framework for Using Computational Models to Evaluate Ecosystem Health. NABEC 2022, Edgewood, MD
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Read D.J., Carroll A., Wainger L.A. 2021. Exploring private land conservation non-adopters attendance at outreach events in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, USA. PeerJ 9:e11959 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11959
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Whitney Lisenbee, Kalra Marali. Modeling Land Use and Climate Change Scenarios to Manage Water Quality in Integrated Agricultural-Urban Landscapes. 2022 Chesapeake Bay Community Research Symposium. June 6-8, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Kalra Marali, Arghajeet Saha, Raj Cibin. A Sustainability-Focused Framework for Computational Evaluation of Ecosystem Services. 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Ecological Engineering Society. June 21-23, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Lisenbee, W. A., Kalra, M., Cibin, R., Kaye, J. (July 2022). Modeling Land Use and Climate Change Scenarios to Manage Water Quality in Integrated Agricultural-Urban Landscapes", ASABE 2022 Annual International Meeting, Houston, TX.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Lisenbee, W. A., Saha, A., Mohammadpour, P., Cibin, R., Kaye, J., Grady, C., and I. Chaubey. (July 2022). Water Quality of Circular Agricultural Systems in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed", ASABE 2022 Annual International Meeting, Houston, TX.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Chaudhary, AK, Read DJ, Carroll A, Wainger L. 2021. Understanding Differences in Attendance of Adopters and Non-adopters of Agricultural Conservation Practices at Outreach Events. Soil and Water Conservation Society Annual Meeting. Online. July 27, 2021.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Read D.J., Wainger L. 2021. Collaborating for Effective Agricultural Technical Assistance. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association/Western Agricultural Economic Association Annual Meeting. Austin, TX, USA/Online. August 2, 2021.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Lisa Wainger and Dan Read, January 2022 CRC Roundtable: Behavior and the Bay: The Human Dimension of Chesapeake Bay Restoration, online, January 19, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Mohammadpour, P. and Grady, C. (2021). What Does Trade Have to Do with It? A Regional Analysis of Nitrogen Flow across the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, New Orleans, LA. December 17, 2021.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Paniz Mohammadpour, Caitlin Grady. How do policy or land management decisions impact the nitrogen loss from the food production chain in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed? Chesapeake Bay Community Research Symposium. June 6-8, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Lisenbee, W. A., Saha, A., Mohammadpour, P., Cibin, R., Kaye, J., Grady, C., and I. Chaubey. (July 2022). Water Quality of Circular Agricultural Systems in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. ASABE 2022 Annual International Meeting, Houston, TX.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Hu, N., Bosch, D., & Zhang, W. 2021. Impact of Energy Shocks on U.S. Agriculture: the REAP Model Approach. Selected paper. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, Austin, Texas, August 1-3.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Hu, N., Bosch, D., & Zhang, W. 2022. Impact of Energy and Ethanol Price Shocks on U.S. Agriculture: A Partial Equilibrium Approach. Selected paper. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, February 13-15.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Sharma, S., Huang, X., & Abler, D. 2022. Agricultural Sustainability in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed: A DEA Analysis. Selected paper. Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association Annual Meeting, Mystic, Connecticut, June 12-14.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Edem Avemegah, Sarah P. Church, Brennan Radulski. Agricultural and Non-Agricultural Residents Perceptions of Water Quality and Interventions: Finding from the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. International Association for Society and Natural Resources Annual Meeting: San Jose, Costa Rica. 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Reed, J. C. Huang, Y. Liu, E. C. Jaenicke, and X. Dong. 2022. Urban-Rural Differences in Consumer Demand for Local and Organic Milk in Pennsylvania. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, Anaheim, California, July 31-August 2.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Weil, R. R., Si, Q., Owens, V. R., and Stefun, M. (2021). Soil health and nutrient flows with enhanced cover cropping and soil management. ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting - A Creative Economy for Sustainable Development. Salt Lake City, Utah. 09-11 Nov. 2021 American Society of Agronomy and Soil Science Society of America.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
White, C. M., Spargo, J. T., Kaye, J. P., Sanders, Z. P., Weil, R. R., Thomason, W. E., . . . Wells, H. L. (2021). Yield gap as a key metric to determining N fertilizer rates in maize crop. ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting - A Creative Economy for Sustainable Development. Salt Lake City, Utah. 09-11 Nov. 2021 American Society of Agronomy and Soil Science Society of America.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Stefun , M., Garbitzer, S., & Weil, R. (2021). Slug Damage to SoybeansDo Cover Crops Help or Hurt? University of Maryland Extension Agronomy News, 12(8).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Zhang, Z., & Abler, D. 2022. Dairy Pricing Policy, Price Variability, and Production: The Class I Mover. Selected poster. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, Anaheim, California, July 31-August 2.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Jeon, Y., Thompson, W., Hoang, H., Abler, D., & Miller, J.I. 2022. Revealing the Fundamental Parameters of a Food Demand System using Estimated Elasticities. Selected paper. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, Anaheim, California, July 31-August 2.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Sedghi, N., and Weil, R. (2022). Fall cover crop nitrogen uptake drives reduced winter-spring leaching. Journal of Environmental Quality, 51(3), May/June 2022, 337-351.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Weil, Ray. 2022. Measuring Soil Health- Which Tests Provide the Most Useful Information? Delmarva Soil Summit. Feb. 7, Salisbury, MD. https://viewstub.com/watch/2022-Delmarva-Soil-Summit. https://delmarvasoilsummit.com/index.php/attend/
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Weil, Ray. 2022. Cover Crops to Manage N, P and other Nutrient Availability. Delmarva Soil Summit. Feb. 8, Salisbury, MD. https://delmarvasoilsummit.com/index.php/attend/
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Stefun, Melissa. 2022. Enhanced Cover Cropping for Nutrient Management and Carbon Sequestration. Northeast Cover Crops Council Annual Conference. Mar. 10th.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Kumar Chaudhary, A., Singh, P., & Basak, S. (2022, July). Redefining stakeholder analysis: Foundation for successful stakeholder engagement. Paper presented at the Soil and Water Conservation Society conference, Denver, Colorado.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Abler, D. 2022. Linking Models of Environmental and Human Systems in the Thriving Ag Project. Chesapeake Community Research Symposium, Annapolis, MD, June 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Villena Martinez, V., Ransom, E., Abler, D. 2022. Do Sustainability and Resilience Go Hand in Hand? The Case of Pennsylvania Dairy Farmers. Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability Annual Conference, Milan, Italy, June 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Villena Martinez, V., Ransom, E., Abler, D. 2022. Do Sustainability and Resilience Go Hand in Hand? The Case of PA Farmers. Production and Operations Management Society Annual Conference, Online, April 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Abler, D. 2021. Agricultural Policy and Regional Shifts in U.S. Dairy Production. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association/Western Agricultural Economic Association Annual Meeting. Austin, TX, USA/Online. August 2, 2021.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Abler, D., Wainger, L., Read, D., Jaenicke, E., Reed, J., Liu, Y., Shortle, J. 2021. Agricultural Sustainability in Urbanized Landscapes. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association/Western Agricultural Economic Association Annual Meeting. Austin, TX, USA/Online. August 2, 2021.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
White, C. 2022. Evolution of Nitrogen Recommendations for Corn: Beyond Mass Balance, Accounting for Cover Crops and Soil Organic Matter, Pennsylvania Agronomic Education Society, PAES Annual Conference, Boalsburg, PA, January 20, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
White, C. 2022. Following the 4Rs of Nutrient Stewardship in Corn Production, Penn State Extension, Lebanon County Crop Conference, Lebanon, PA, February 16, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Jeon, Y., Thompson, W., Hoang, H., Abler, D., & Miller, J.I. 2022. A meta-analysis of U.S. food demand elasticities to detect the impacts of scanner data. Southern Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, February 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
White, C. Update on the PSU Cover Crop Nitrogen Recommendation Tool for Corn. Pennsylvania No-Till Alliance Summer Meeting, York, PA. June 20, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
White, C. Update on the PSU Cover Crop Nitrogen Recommendation Tool for Corn. Pennsylvania No-Till Alliance Summer Meeting, Mercer County, PA. June 22, 2022.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Kleinman, P., Osmond, D., Christianson, L., Flaten, D., Ippolito, J., Jarvie, H., Kaye, J. & King, K., Leytem, A., Mcgrath, J., Nelson, N., Shober, A., Smith, D., Staver, K., Sharpley, A., Peter, C., and Kleinman, J. (2022). Addressing conservation practice limitations and trade-offs for reducing phosphorus loss from agricultural fields. Agricultural & Environmental Letters. 7. 20084. 10.1002/ael2.20084.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Antonio-Ordonez, R., White, C., & Kemanian, A. R. (November 2021). Maize Yield Predictions across Pennsylvania Using Cycles Agroecosystem Model. Agronomy Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America International Annual Meetings, Agronomy Society of America, Salt Lake City, Utah.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
White, C. Evolution of Nitrogen Recommendations in Corn: Beyond the Mass Balance Approach Towards Crediting N Supply from Cover Crops and Soil Organic Matter. Pennsylvania 4R Alliance 4waRd Thinking Webinar Series. November 2, 2021.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Lisenbee, W., Saha, A., Mohammadpour, P., Raj, C., Kaye, J., Grady, C., Indrajeet, C. Water Quality of Circular Agricultural Systems in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers Annual International Meeting. Houston, TX. July 16-20, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Arrington, K., Bradley, B., Kaye, J., White, C. The role of cover crops in reducing nitrogen leaching from cropland. Lancaster-Lebanon Watershed Forum and Science Symposium, Elizabethtown College. Nov 19th & 20th, 2021.
|
Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21
Outputs
Target Audience:During this reporting period, the Project Team and Stakeholder Advisory Board met twice, in November 2020 and March 2021. The 20-member Stakeholder Advisory Board includes farmers, consultants who provide technical assistance to farmers, local and state government officials in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, agribusiness industry association representatives, a Farm Bureau representative, a land developer, soil and water conservation district representatives, and representatives from environmental organizations. Results have also been shared with numerous other communities of interest via conferences, webinars, and forums. Changes/Problems:Covid-19 continued tohave amajorimpact onthe project during this reporting period.Changes in policies and procedures at the participating institutions on this project in response to Covid-19 led to hiring delaysthat significantly slowedproject work for some of the task teams.Changesto immigration policy, visa processing, and travel restrictions as a result of Covid-19 slowed down, and in some cases prevented,the hiring of new graduate research assistants for the project.Project meetings were held entirely online and the project team has been using online collaborative tools.While the online tools are a great asset, the absence of in-person meetingsis negatively impacting the collaborationsbetween and among team members and stakeholders that areneeded for this project tosucceed. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Tasks 1 and 2. Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars on the project participate in the project team meetings and meetings with theStakeholder Advisory Board(SAB).Through this participation, they can observe and learn first-hand how alargetransdisciplinary project operates, how team members from different disciplinescollaboratewith each other, howthe project team andSABwork together, and how they should function as team members. Task 5.The Task 5 teamhasrecruited a first-year Ph.D. student, Josh Reed, to work on the project. The student is working closely with co-PIsJaenicke and Liu, mainly on economic modelling and large dataset processing during this reporting period. While working on the project, the student also gainsexperience working with a large, multi-disciplinaryteam. Task 7.Two project team membersattended Northeast Cover Crop ConferenceonMarch 4,2021. There has been networkingamongtechnicians, graduate students,and postdocs ontheproject.A Ph.D.student wasrecruited,and thestudentplansto begin Ph.D.studies in Summer 2021.A postdoctoral scholar, Raziel Antonio-Ordonez,has been actively participating in the project since October 2020.Zachary Sanders is completing his Ph.D.in Soil Science and Biogeochemistry and is actively engaged in the project as a student and research technician.Undergraduate students Jillian Barskey and Baleigh Rosado have been supervised by Sanders and are actively involved in learning skills related to laboratory and field data collection and analysis. Task 8.A Ph.D.Student, Marali Kalra,was hired on the project in January 2021.Kalra auditedaSWAT course to learnabout themodel. Task 9.The project has provided training and professional development for one postdoctoral scholar, Daniel Read, who has expanded his training in both qualitative and quantitative analyses, learned substantive information about agricultural conservation and behavioral economics, and gained experience in collaborative project design. Task 10. This project has allowed for onePh.D.student, Paniz Mohammadpour, to develop professionally by conducting research in line with the project's objectives. She has gained experience presenting research findings to other team members and receiving feedback onTask Team 10'sperformance.Mohammadpourhas also presented her work at one regional and one international conference (The Northeast Agricultural and Biological Engineering Conference; American Geophysical Union Fall Conference) as well as at seminars throughout Penn State.She hasbenefited from meeting and networking with experts in various aspects of nonpoint source pollution throughout the project. Task 11. This projectissupportinga Ph.D.student, Junyi Hua, and an undergraduate student.The students are learning about data used to evaluate land use change and econometric procedures for estimating the determinants of land conversion. Task 12.One Ph.D. student was hired on this project and has begun her Ph.D. program completing the first semester in the Fall of 2020. Ten undergraduate students have been involved as undergraduate research assistants helping to collect samples prepare them and run analyzes. three students are working on a senior project associated with this research program. Another student did her senior project in Fall 2020 on the calibration of soil sensors. One undergraduate student has been recruited for a special four plus one graduate/undergraduate program that enables her to obtain a master's degree with just one year beyond theBachelor'sdegree. She is planning to work on his small farm case study analyses. Task 13. To date, threePh.D. students, Nate Hu,SadikshyaSharma, andXuetaoHuang, haveworkedon the project. They are conducting analysis using REAP and GIS models. This work furthers their understanding of the development and application of models for understanding challenges and opportunities confronting agriculture in urbanizing regions. Task 16. Ph.D.student EdemAvemegahis receivingtraining and experience with conductingseveraltypes of evaluation research, including skills and data which will be used for his dissertation. This has included materials and experience related to developing aTheory of Change (TOC)for the project and the preparation for conducting an online panelsurveyof Chesapeake Baywatershed (CBW) residents. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Tasks 1 and 2. Two all-hands meetings, one in November 2020 and one in March 2021, engaged critical communities of interest represented as members of the Stakeholder Advisory Board. Tasks 7 and 8. Members of these teams submitted an abstract to American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers Annual Meeting that takes place in July 2021. They presented an educational video about cover crops at Northeast Cover Crop Council Conference on March 4, 2021. This team also met with a group of farmers to gather feedback on N decision tool developed by co-PI White. Results from co-PI Thomason's fieldwork have been presented at the virtual Eastern Shore Ag Conference and at the NFWF Ag Networking Forum. Task 9. By serving on advisory boards to several workshop planning efforts, this team's findings have informed efforts by state government and non-governmental organization representatives in focusing workshop topics on unaddressed questions. They are working on the first group of publications to come from this work and planning several conference presentations for the year. Their work brings a distinct perspective by distinguishing sequences of events that lead to adoption and separating BMP incentives by revenue effects of practices. An abstract on understanding differences in attendance of adopters and non-adopters of agricultural conservation practices at outreach events has been accepted for presentation at the July 2021 Soil and Water Conservation Society annual conference. Task 10. This team presented results at both a regional research conference and international research conference in 2020 (The Northeast Agricultural and Biological Engineering Conference; American Geophysical Union Fall Conference). Task 12. Some of the early results and concepts have been disseminated to the scientific community through presentations at the Soil Science Society of America, the American Society of Agronomy in November 2020, and at the Northeast Cover Crop Council annual conference in March 2021. A presentation on Nitrogen Management with Cover Crops was made at the Penn State Extension Agronomy Field Crop Production Online Conference, November 19, 2020. A presentation on the same topic was made to the Pennsylvania 4R Alliance, October 7, 2020. This presentation discussed how cover crops affect N management, including prevention of leaching of the winter and how to adjust N fertilizer rates in corn after cover crops. A presentation on On-Farm Trials to Inform Cover Crop and Nitrogen Management was made at a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Chesapeake Bay Regional Soil Health Webinar, June 25, 2020. Agricultural and environmental community stakeholders have been engaged at a summer field day on the eastern shore of Maryland in Kent county in August 2020 under the auspices of shore Rivers LLC, a non-profit environmental group devoted to protecting water quality in collaboration with landowners. Task 13. An abstract summarizing the methods and anticipated outcomes of analysis of the effects of energy price increases has been accepted by the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) for presentation at the summer 2021 meetings of the Association. Also, two proposals for organized symposium sessions at these meetings, one on challenges facing agriculture in urbanized landscapes and a second on regional shifts in U.S. agricultural production, were accepted by AAEA. The team engages in weekly meetings with personnel from USDA ERS and other institutions, including the University of Wisconsin, who are working to improve documentation, performance, and other aspects of the REAP model. Task 15. The Task 15 team is using the project website (https://thrivingag.org) and social media accounts to inform communities of interest about project goals, objectives, and accomplishments. The project website includes the year 1 annual report (March 2020) and year 2 annual report (March 2021). Task 16. Co-PI Schad shared the project's year 1 formative assessment report and recommendations from her interviews with team members with the full team in May 2020. This report is on the project website. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Tasks 1 and 2. The project team will select a subset of volunteers from the Stakeholder Advisory Board (SAB) to provide more frequent comment and feedback as the details of the five scenarios mentioned above are finalized: business as usual; payments for performance of ecosystem services and achieving nutrient balance; managing urban growth and maintaining existing farmland; increasing farm profitability through local food efforts and growing urban-rural relationships; and a dietary shift to plant-based proteins and alternative meats. The entire SAB will be reconvened in fall 2021 to review results of work by the project team on analyzing the five scenarios. Tasks 3 and 9. The Task 9 team will begin data collection on the collaborative field experiment, publish papers from the ongoing work, and continue to collect and analyze county-level data to assess the efficacy of conservation policies over time. The Tasks 3 and 9 teams will expand the field experiments and collaborations with non-governmental partners to develop improved guidance for technical assistance provider training. Task 4. This team will identify appropriate topics for two workshops with stakeholder-users, based on the five scenarios and the project team's expertise. Planning for the workshops will begin once topics have been identified. Task 5. This team will expand its analysis to multiple food product categories and assess how the preference for local and organic products vary across categories. By matching their data with census track information, the team will evaluate how preferences for local/organic vary in urban and rural areas. Task 6. This team will complete blockchain survey development, distribution, and analysis during the summer/fall time frame and then to subsequently begin analysis of a blockchain framework to address the survey results. The team will identify a working group of key local small packers and shippers, a group of key non-profit and regional distributors, and a working group of key institutional buyers. Task 7. This team will gather an additional year of data on the cover crop selection trial, expanding to test the N decision tool variable N rate applications impacts on yield. This experiment is part of larger effort that will also assess greenhouse gas emissions and a suite of ecosystem services potentially provided by cover crops, including increases in soil microbial community and corn pest resistance. Lab incubations will continue to advance understanding of underlying mechanisms of how cover crops affect nutrient cycling across soil texture, so the team can extrapolate what they learn from their local site to other soil sites with other soil textures around the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The team will continue to develop scenarios in the SWAT model to understand how environmental changes or climate change could affect nutrient cycling in the field. Construction at four field sites in Maryland will be completed in 2021. Each field site will be instrumented with various equipment as H-Flumes, Water Control Structures, Rain Gauges, Solar Panels and instruments such as autosamplers, pressure transducers. The Tasks 7 and 12 teams plan to start sampling these sites by fall 2021. Adaptive management fields will be established to monitor agronomic and environmental performance of different cropping systems and management practices. Also, six on-farm nitrogen response trials in corn will be conducted to validate the new nitrogen fertilizer recommendation system in Pennsylvania. Task 8. This team will further refine the SWAT model developed for Susquehanna River Basin with SSURGO (Soil Survey Geographic Database) soil data. The revised model will be used to evaluate scenarios developed as part of Objective 1. While the scenarios are being refined, the model will be used to evaluate various sustainable manure management strategies in the Susquehanna River Basin under the manureshed concept. The SWAT model will also be used to understand the effectiveness of urban BMPs such as new Low Impact Development (LID) practices as compared to traditional agricultural BMPs, under projected land use conditions in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Task 10. This team will make enhancements to its nitrogen flow model. They will expand the crops and animal products in their model to include wheat, poultry layers, and dairy products. They will evaluate watershed changes to increase NUE and reduce Nr based on model results. They will also differentiate the total N loss released to the environment by identifying various N pathways. This team plans to begin integrating their model with other models such as SWAT. Task 11. This team will complete initial estimation of land conversion models and begin integration of key conversion outcomes with the SWAT model. They further expect to refine their estimation objectives with input from stakeholders and develop additional policy evaluations using their land conversion models. Task 12. This team will install additional monitoring equipment, continue the cropping systems, and obtain a complete set of water samples appropriate to the season's hydrology. They will analyze the different forms of nitrogen and phosphorus in these water samples and model their loss in relation to rainfall amounts and intensities and management practices. These data will help interface with other groups working on SWAT and other nutrient models. They also plan to begin the analysis of case studies of small farms along urban to rural transects in the Baltimore area. The soils in two catchments in Pennsylvania will be mapped for electrical conductivity to determine soil texture zones to guide subsequent fertility management. Task 13. This team will complete updating the baseline dataset used with REAP. They will continue the analysis of energy price increases using REAP and begin analyzing other aspects of the five scenarios listed above. Task 14. This team will start planning for developing two team-taught online courses at the four universities, one undergraduate course and one graduate course, based on the project's methods and findings. The team will explore possibilities for delivering project findings to high school students. Task 15. To better guide the project outreach activities matching the needs of stakeholders, this team will conduct a formal stakeholder analysis in order to design targeted outreach products for different stakeholders including the promised new Community of Practice (CoP) on eXtension centered on sustainable agricultural systems in urbanized landscapes. This team will regularly update the project website and post on social media to make stakeholders aware of project news, events, outputs and outcomes. Task 16. This team will conduct an online panel survey of Chesapeake Bay watershed (CBW) residents, including those living in both rural and urban parts of the watershed. The first round of the panel survey will be conducted in 2021, with the second round planned for 2024. To have a formative assessment of the research teams' organizational efficacy and interdisciplinary team collaboration, an online survey of the project team will be conducted in 2021. A CBW producer panel survey will also be conducted during the next year and then repeated in 2024. The team will also continue its development of a theory of change (TOC) through online instruments to help guide further evaluation efforts and finalize a TOC. Integration Teams. The Integration Teams will continue to identify knowledge gaps to engage additional contributions to fill needs regarding scenario evaluation. Implementation of a data management plan is an important goal to accomplish in the next reporting period. Expectations for data sharing and management will need to be established in order to increase collaboration among the various task teams. The data and information are also important to share with outside stakeholders, so making it publicly accessible is key.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The project has four broad objectives and 16 tasks, and reporting is organized by objective/task. OBJECTIVE 1. Engage Closely with Stakeholders. Task 1. Stakeholder Advisory Board (SAB), and Task 2. Scenario Building with SAB. A 2-day Zoom workshop was held in November 2020 for the SAB and Project Team involving visioning discussions on "thriving agriculture" in urbanized landscapes, changes necessary for improvements, indicators of change, potential drivers for change, and the interplay between agriculture and the broader community. Workshop outcomes were incorporated into scenario development at a March 2021 Zoom meeting of the SAB and Project Team. Five draft scenarios were discussed: business as usual; payments for performance of ecosystem services and achieving nutrient balance; managing urban growth and maintaining existing farmland; increasing farm profitability through local food efforts and growing urban-rural relationships; and a dietary shift to plant-based proteins and alternative meats. Task 3. Networks of Engaged Stakeholders, and Task 4. Workshops with Stakeholder-Users. These tasks will take place during project years 3-5. OBJECTIVE 2. Market and Supply Chain Research for Productivity Gains. Task 5. Market Analysis for Local and Organic Products. The Task 5 team gained access to scanner data being used by this analysis from USDA ERS through the NORC Data Enclave. The team chose the packaged salad market in the Baltimore area as a case study. They built a structural model to estimate consumer preference for local/organic brands and completed initial analysis on prices, market shares, revenue shares of local, organic, and national brands. Task 6. Blockchain Technology to Expand Markets for Value-Added Products. The Task 6 team developed a draft survey for small to mid-sized Pennsylvania wholesale growers, specifically producers of apple, vegetables, and potatoes to determine whether blockchain can increase market and premium pricing opportunities for specialized or value-added agricultural products through transparency and greater connection to producers. OBJECTIVE 3. Research on Tools, Models, Analyses to Improve Productivity and Nutrient Use Efficiency. Task 7. Field-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. The Task 7 team engaged in management and data collection of a cover crop species selection trial that helps farmers determine which cover crops and mixtures meet their needs as well impacts of cover crops on cycling of key nutrients. They measured potential nitrate leaching in anion resins and lysimeters, nitrogen supply to corn, impact on yield, cover crop biomass, stand counts, preliminary look at potential P leaching, and measurements of inorganic nitrogen in both surface soil (monthly) and to 80 cm depth (yearly). A new nitrogen fertilizer recommendation system that accounts for N supply from cover crops and soil organic matter was developed from historical data and published in Agronomy Journal. Three additional field trials were conducted on commercial farms in 2020 to test the accuracy of the new N fertilizer recommendation system. Task 8. Watershed-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. The Task 8 team developed a comprehensive Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model for the Susquehanna River Basin, which is the largest watershed draining to the Chesapeake Bay. SWAT is a process based semi-distributed ecohydrological model that is calibrated/validated for crop yield, hydrology, sediment and nutrient loading at multiple locations in the Susquehanna River Basin. Task 9. Farmer-Stakeholder Experiments. The Task 9 team conducted interviews with technical assistance providers and farmers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. They designed a field experiment that will test the effectiveness of using best management practice (BMP) photographs, during field visits with farmers, on BMP adoption. Task 10. Regional-Scale Nutrient Flow Analysis. The Task 10 team built a nitrogen mass flow model of crop-animal-meat production chain products inclusive of trade for major agricultural commodities and food products in the Chesapeake Bay watershed at both watershed and regional scales. The model is designed to measure embedded nitrogen resources, focusing on quantifying NUE and nitrogen pollution at each stage of the crop-animal-meat production system. They presented initial results at two 2020 conferences, American Geophysical Union and Northeast Agricultural and Biological Engineering. Task 11. Agent-Based Modelling. The Task 11 team developed data needed to evaluate land use change across the urban/rural gradient. These data were sourced from the National Land Cover Database as raster files which they combined and extracted to capture conversion from pasture and crop land into various development density outcomes. This data was supplemented with parcel level information obtained for a subset of counties in the Chesapeake Bay, including Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and Baltimore County, Maryland to ground truth the use of these data and provide enhanced resolution for eventual integration with the SWAT modeling teams. Task 12. Adaptive Management Sites. Three research sites were established at the Central Maryland Research and Education Center Beltsville facility. Experiments at these sites use adaptive management to learn from successes and failures. The main plots are a corn-soybean cropping system with enhanced cover cropping versus a corn-soybean system with standard practice cover cropping. The enhanced cover cropping involves interceding to establish cover crops earlier than is typical so that substantial growth can be achieved in the fall to capture nutrients and protect the soil over the winter. In Spring the enhanced cover cropping practices include allowing the cover crop to grow right up until cash crop planting or even beyond into early May. The parameters being measured include cover crop yields, runoff water from rainstorms and nutrient content of that water, percolation water from suction lysimeters and nutrient content of the percolate, and ecological observations on pests, nutrients and plant condition as well as soil health. Task 13. Economic Simulations and Modelling. The Task 13 team worked with USDA ERS to adapt REAP (Regional Environment and Agriculture Programming Model) to the needs of the project. REAP is a large-scale partial equilibrium model of the U.S. agricultural sector that simulates regional allocation of agricultural resources and production in response to changes in policy, market, and biophysical conditions. The team updated baseline data used to drive REAP and used REAP to analyze impacts of increasing energy prices. OBJECTIVE 4. Education, Extension, Evaluation. Task 14. Education Plan. The work on Task 14 will begin in project year 3. Task 15. Extension Plan. Task 15. A project website (https://thrivingag.org/) and social media accounts were created to increase awareness of project goals and outreach of project outputs and outcomes. Task 16. External Evaluation. The Task 16 team interviewed project team members in 2020 and prepared a report on the research teams' organizational efficacy and interdisciplinary team collaboration, and suggestions for improvement. This team started development of a Theory of Change (TOC) for the project in fall 2020. The team a drafted a questionnaire for a stakeholder survey to be conducted in 2021. Integration Teams. To promote mutually supportive team efforts, the project team created a flow chart documenting what project pieces inform other project pieces. Using that flow chart, the team identified sub-teams to meet regularly to share progress and receive input from a broad set of team members. A project management tool was implemented to keep track of task and integration team goals and progress. It is also being used to keep track of project budget and expenditures.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
White, C., Finney, D. M., Kemanian, A. R., & Kaye, J. P. 2020. Modeling the Contributions of Nitrogen Mineralization to Yield of Corn. Agronomy Journal, 1-14.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Bradley, B., Kaye, J., and T. Rowles. Cover Crop Educational Module and Cover Crops Ask Why Are We Here. Contributed videos presented at 2021 Northeast Cover Crop Council Conference, Online hosted at College Park, Maryland, March 4th, 2021.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Thomason, W.E. Corn response to emergence timing and N supply from cover crops. Eastern Shore Ag Conference. Virtual, January 23, 2021.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Thomason, W.E. Assessment of corn N management strategies. National Fish and Wildlife Forum. Virtual, February 24, 2021.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Thomason, W.E., R.O. Maguire, M. Swoish, J.F. Leme and J. McGrath. 2020. Spatial variation in corn response to starter phosphorus fertilizer. In International Annual Meetings Abstracts. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA, Madison, WI (Virtual).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Cibin, R., Saha, A., Saha, G., Spiegal, S., & Kleinman, P. November 2020. Water quality outcomes of implementing the manureshed concept in Susquehanna River Basin, 2020 ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meeting, Online. International.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Saha, G., Cibin, R., Elliott, H. A., & Gall, H. E. (July 2020). Impact Assessment of Manure Nutrient-Loss Due to New Animal Agricultural Developments, ASABE 2020 Annual International Meeting, Online. International.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Saha, A., & Cibin, R. July 2020. Potential Environmental Benefits Evaluation of Manure and Nutrient Placement Strategies Considering Optimal Weather Condition, ASABE 2020 Annual International Meeting, Online. International.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Saha, A., & Cibin, R. June 2020. Water quality benefits of weather forecasting based strategic manure application timing in the Susquehanna River Basin, Chesapeake Community Research Symposium 2020, Online. National.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Saha, A., & Cibin, R. July 2020. Quantifying water quality benefits of weather forecasting based manure application timing strategies in the Susquehanna River Basin, The Northeast Agricultural and Biological Engineering Conference (NABEC), Online. Regional.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Saha, G., Cibin, R., Elliott, H. A., & Gall, H. E. July 2020. Simulation based impact assessment of land applied manure nutrient loss due to landscape environmental vulnerabilities, The Northeast Agricultural and Biological Engineering Conference (NABEC), Online. International.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Saha, A., & Cibin, R. June 2020. Comprehensive development of an ecohydrologic model (SWAT) for Susquehanna River Basin in an agro-ecosystem framework, Chesapeake Community Research Symposium 2020, Online. National.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Mohammadpour, P., Grady, C.A. Nitrogen Pollution Embedded in Commodity Supply Chains and Trade; Linking Systems and Scales across Water, Energy, and Land. Contributed presentation at AGU (American Geophysical Union) Fall Meeting, Virtual, USA, December 10, 2020.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Mohammadpour, P., Grady, C.A. Quantifying the effects of trade throughout the Chesapeake Bay on its nitrogen balance. Contributed presentation at NABEC (Northeast Agricultural and Biological Engineering Conference), Virtual, USA, July 28, 2020.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
White, Charles M. Conference, Instructor, On-Line, Nitrogen Management with Cover Crops, Penn State Extension, Agronomy Field Crop Production Online Conference, 50 participant(s), External to Penn State, Professional. November 19, 2020.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
White, Charles M. Webinar, Instructor, On-Line, Nitrogen Management with Cover Crops, Pennsylvania 4R Alliance, PA 4R Alliance Nutrient Stewardship Webinar Series, 100 participant(s), External to Penn State, Professional. October 7, 2020.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
White, Charles M. Webinar, Instructor, On-Line, On-Farm Trials to Inform Cover Crop and Nitrogen Management, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Chesapeake Bay Regional Soil Health Webinars, 100 participant(s), External to Penn State, Professional. June 25, 2020.
|
Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience:A key milestone for this project was the convening of the project's Stakeholder Advisory Board at an initial "all hands" kickoff meeting that was held on February 12, 2020. The 20-member Stakeholder Advisory Board includes farmers, consultants who provide technical assistance to farmers, local and state government officials in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, agribusiness industry association representatives, a Farm Bureau representative, a land developer, soil and water conservation district representatives, and representatives from environmental organizations. Changes/Problems:The COVID-19 situation began to impact project work in March 2020, as described above, and it will undoubtedly have an impact during the rest of 2020 and into 2021, especially on the scheduling of project workshops, events, and Stakeholder Advisory Board meetings. At the present time project meetings are being held entirely online and the project team is using online collaborative tools. Plans for field work beginning in spring 2020 continue within requirements and guidelines dictated by the COVID-19 situation. The project team is committed to continuing the scheduled work of the project to the extent possible, and will evaluate and adjust work schedules as needed. Challenges to agricultural production and food supply chains created by the COVID-19 situation are likely to come up during the project's engagement activities with stakeholders. The ability to overcome these challenges is one aspect of a resilient food system, and resilience is a concept closely related to sustainability. While no changes to project goals and objectives are anticipated, the COVID-19 situation will likely inform the team's work on, for example, the sustainability of local food supply chains compared to national/global food supply chains. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Seven PhD-level graduate research assistants have joined the project so far, out of a total of 14 once the project is fully staffed. These graduate students are working on Tasks 1 and 2 (one student), 7 (one student), 8 (one student), 10 (one student), 12 (two students), and 16 (one student). Four of these students had been hired in time to attend and participate in the February 12, 2020 project kickoff meeting, which provided them with experiential learning for engaging stakeholders in research. For all these students, this is their first large-scale transdisciplinary project. In addition to training within their respective disciplines, this project is providing them with professional development opportunities through learning from other disciplines, learning from stakeholders, and project research planning. One postdoctoral scholar has been hired on the project so far, with an additional two searches for postdocs underway. The postdoc who has been hired is working on Task 9. Through his work on the project, this postdoc has gained understanding of agricultural and behavioral economics in the context of water quality interventions and gained practical experience in web design and workshop organization. The two postdocs to be hired soon will work on Tasks 7, 8, 10, and 12. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Tasks 1 and 2. The February 12, 2020 project kickoff meeting was designed to engage critical communities of interest represented as members of the Stakeholder Advisory Board. Meeting notes were distributed to all Stakeholder Advisory Board members. Task 7. An online portal containing nitrogen (N) decision support tools was established to assist with making N fertilizer recommendations that credit cover crops and soil organic matter (https://extension.psu.edu/nitrogen-recommendations-for-corn). Task 9. The project team has so far spoken with over 40 members of the Chesapeake Bay region's agricultural technical assistance community. These conversations focused on the content of the planned technical assistance workshop, its outputs, and how it could be useful to technical assistance field staff. Several meetings have been held to coordinate the project team's work with others in the Chesapeake Bay region who are conducting related investigations including the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, The Nature Conservancy, and Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Tasks 1 and 2. The next step will be to convene a small planning group to begin planning the envisioning exercise, which will be the next major meeting with Stakeholder Advisory Board members. This meeting will be planned and held within the next reporting period, and is likely to be held in late summer or fall 2020. Outcomes will be to provide a clear vision of what "thriving agriculture" is, strategies for achieving that vision, identification of challenges or barriers in reaching it, and suggested solutions for overcoming those barriers. These outcomes will help frame the development of scenarios for testing the research hypotheses. Following the visioning session, project team researchers will meet collectively in a workshop format to develop a proposed scenario process and recommended scenarios, which will be shared at the next Stakeholder Advisory Board meeting in spring 2021 for input and finalization of scenarios to be tested. Task 3. The project team is planning to hold a high-profile public event on the economic and environmental sustainability of agriculture in urbanized landscapes. A diverse group of stakeholders will be invited including farmers, extension agents, representatives from soil and water conservation districts, Farm Bureau representatives, state and local government officials, NGOs such as waterkeepers and conservation nonprofits, and industry representatives. Task 4. This task is scheduled for years 3-4 of the project. Task 5. The project team anticipates that the formal process with Penn State, USDA-ERS, and IRI of obtaining approval to collaborate on the market analysis and valuation of organic and local product attributes using IRI scanner data will be completed. The team expects that a graduate research assistant will be hired to work on this project task, that data collection on local attributes of products in the IRI scanner database will begin, and that preliminary data analysis will also begin. Task 6. Once interview schedules and survey instruments on the potential of blockchain technology to expand markets for value-added products are finalized and have received Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, they will be administered to in the case study Chesapeake Bay region to small- and mid-scale farmers, local small packers and shippers, regional distributors, and institutional buyers to identify key bottlenecks to utilizing more local products from smaller scale farmers and to utilizing blockchain technology. Task 7. Field sites will be identified and implemented to test the new N fertilizer recommendation system. At each site a response series of increasing N fertilizer rates will be established to identify the economic optimum N fertilizer rate at each site. Measurements of cover crop N, C:N ratio, soil organic matter, and soil texture will be used to calculate N fertilizer recommendations. The actual economic N rate will be compared to the new N fertilizer recommended rate and the new tool will be adjusted as needed. The process of collecting soil and runoff samples will begin. Task 8. Calibration/validation of the SWAT model for the Susquehanna River Basin will be completed. Using the calibrated model, the project team will develop spatial targeting of manure/fertilizer management considering both land suitability and cropping patterns in the Susquehanna River Basin. The team will continue to develop the SWAT+ model (an upgraded version of SWAT) for the Spring Creek watershed (a sub-watershed of the Susquehanna River Basin) and compare it with SWAT. Task 9. The project team will conduct the workshop that has been postponed and begin collaborative field testing with members of the technical assistance community. The workshop will be held once COVID-19 no longer poses serious risks to the population. At the end of this workshop, attendees' interest in collaboratively testing different methods of farmer engagement will be assessed. From this larger group, a smaller group of technical assistance field staff will be convened to begin a collaborative process to design and implement these tests. By the next reporting period, the team plans to have designed and begun data collection on the first test. Task 10. Next steps include determining how to appropriately downscale data on N mass balance fluxes based on trade embedded resource accounting within, into, and out of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Downscaling will be done in a manner to align with other outputs from the project team. The project team will also be investigating tracking of phosphorous through these embedded resource accounting and trade flow tracking methods. Task 11. A baseline agent-based model of farmer behavior will be developed, and data will be collected in order to expand the current urban land use change work beyond the existing Baltimore metro area. Task 12. The adaptive management field in Pennsylvania is an approximately 60 ha production field in a corn-soy rotation. Operationally it will be divided into two drainage catchments. For the next two years, a standard corn-soy rotation will be implemented across both catchments to establish a baseline for water quality monitoring. In the third year, one catchment will begin to be managed with advanced cover crop and N fertilizer recommendations while the other will be maintained under baseline management. The advanced management will include interseeding cover crops in standing corn and soybeans and using N recommendations in corn that credit cover crop N recycling and N mineralized from soil organic matter. Lysimeters will be installed in drainage areas of each catchment and sampled for nitrate and ammonium concentrations. Surface runoff flumes will be installed to measure water budgets and periodic sampling of runoff nutrients. In Maryland, crops and treatment plots will be established and instrumentation will be installed in three research study sites at the University of Maryland Central Maryland Research and Education Center (CMREC). From these sites soil, leaching, cover crop, and yield data will be collected. In addition, a research program for new graduate research assistants will be developed that includes designing case studies on two farms and data collection protocols for CMREC studies. The project team expects to enter into research agreements with two farms for whole-farm case studies and then install instrumentation and collect baseline samples from these two farms. This team will also design questionnaire instruments for case study farmers and surrounding urbanizing areas. Task 13. The project team will be continuing discussions with USDA-ERS on possibilities for updating the REAP model, with particular attention to the hydrology/crop growth component. The team will also focus on obtaining geospatial and economic datasets necessary to run the REAP model for sub-watersheds within Chesapeake Bay watershed, with the Susquehanna River Basin a likely candidate. Tasks 14 and 15. These tasks are scheduled for years 3-5 of the project. As preparatory work for those tasks, the project team is conducting a literature review on how other large, interdisciplinary projects with an outreach component implemented outreach in their projects, to help fine-tune the outreach in this project. Task 16. Dr. Schad will continue the assessment of the project team's organizational efficacy and interdisciplinary team collaboration by follow-up interviews and/or short surveys with team members, and assess the project team's interactions with various stakeholders through interviews and/or surveys with the Stakeholder Advisory Board, for example. In order to assess whether the project will meet its long-term objectives, Dr. Schad will conduct a mail and online pre-survey of agricultural producers and other stakeholder groups in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. A follow up survey will be conducted in year 5 to determine how the project has changed attitudes and behaviors.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This project has four broad objectives and 16 tasks to achieve this goal, and the reporting here is organized by objective/task. This annual progress reportis coming at the 7-month mark of this project, which officially started on September 1, 2019. Objective 1. Engage closely with stakeholders using a shared discovery framework to envision desired 25-year futures for agricultural systems in urbanized landscapes that are economically sustainable while enhancing ecosystem services. Task 1. Stakeholder Advisory Board, and Task 2. Scenario Building with Stakeholder Advisory Board. Additional members were added to the project's Stakeholder Advisory Board to ensure comprehensive and diverse interests in agriculture across the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed case study region. An initial "all hands" kickoff meeting was planned and held on February 12, 2020 for both researchers and stakeholders. Approximately 25 research faculty, students and stakeholders attended and another 10 participated online. The kickoff meeting achieved meeting objectives of establishing relationships between and among diverse researchers and stakeholders who will be working closely together over the next five years on this project. The project overview and lightning talks during the meeting provided valuable background information to stakeholders on the research proposal design and objectives. The open discussion allowed stakeholders and researchers alike to explore priority issues, trends, visions challenges, and potential solutions to consider in meeting dual goals of supporting and enhancing agricultural productivity and environmental stewardship. Task 3. Networks of Engaged Stakeholders, and Task 4. Workshops with Stakeholder-Users. These tasks are scheduled for years 2-5 of the project (Task 3) and years 3-4 (Task 4). Objective 2. Carry out iterative research processes on markets and supply chains for productivity gains. Task 5. Market Analysis for Local and Organic Products. In order to gain access to the IRI (Information Resources, Inc.) supermarket and consumer panel scanner data needed to research the potential for productivity gains through market channels, a research collaboration has been initiated with USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS). The formal process with Penn State, USDA-ERS, and IRI of obtaining approval to collaborate on the market analysis and valuation of organic and local product attributes using IRI scanner data has begun. Task 6. Blockchain Technology to Expand Markets for Value-Added Products. Interview schedules and survey instruments on the potential of blockchain technology to expand markets for value-added products are being drafted. Objective 3. Carry out iterative research processes on tools, models, and analyses to improve total factor productivity (TFP) and nutrient use efficiency (NUE). Task 7. Field-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. An online portal containing nitrogen (N) decision support tools was established to assist with making N fertilizer recommendations that credit cover crops and soil organic matter (https://extension.psu.edu/nitrogen-recommendations-for-corn). Field sites to test N fertilizer recommendations in corn have been established or identified. Four on-farm sites in Pennsylvania were identified to conduct N fertilizer rate response trials that will be used to validate the N recommendations. In Virginia, preseason planning has occurred and field sites have been selected. Sampling will begin in early April and proceed through the summer crop season. Task 8. Watershed-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. The project team has developed a comprehensive Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model for the Susquehanna River Basin (SRB). The SRB occupies 43% of the Chesapeake Bay drainage area. The model was developed with about 1,000 sub-basins at the HUC-12 boundary scale and over 50,000 landscape units called HRUs in SWAT. The model is currently being finetuned to represent a baseline scenario for the watershed with best management practices (BMPs), and exploring the impacts of different manure management scenarios in the watershed. Task 9. Farmer-Stakeholder Experiments A technical assistance workshop is being organized will elicit best practices for engaging farmers about BMPs and conservation, as well as set the stage for further collaborative testing of such practices. Workshop materials have all been completed. A list of invitees has also been created and over 40 personal calls have been made to key people in the technical assistance community to advertise, and elicit feedback about, the workshop. All IRB documents for the workshop have been submitted and approved. The workshop had been scheduled for March 23, 2020, but due to the COVID-19 situation, it has been postponed. The project team is tentatively looking to reschedule the workshop to early June, though this will depend on the venue's availability and the status of the pandemic. Task 10. Regional-Scale Nutrient Flow Analysis. The project team has begun to gather necessary information (data and equations) to calculate N mass balance fluxes based on trade embedded resource accounting within, into, and out of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The team anticipates soon having a first-order approximation of N embedded in the production and consumption of commodities including corn, soybeans, fertilizer, and processed meat (including beef, chicken, and poultry). Task 11. Agent-Based Modelling. The project team has assembled initial data from pre-existing surveys of approximately 6,800 Pennsylvania farmers containing information on both crop and livestock production intensity, agricultural inputs and BMPs for both crop and livestock production. This data will form the basis for agent-based modeling of spatial agro-environmental choices farmers make. Using microlevel data on residential subdivision development from the Baltimore, Maryland, metro area the project team developed a model of density and timing of residential development at the individual parcel level. Task 12. Adaptive Management Sites. Teams from Penn State and the University of Maryland have met several time and shared GIS (geographic information systems) layers of potential field sites for the project's adaptive management watersheds. The project team has conducted field trips to potential sites as a team and with external advisors. At Penn State the team identified and obtained permission to establish one adaptive management site on Penn State farmland. Task 13. Economic Simulations and Modelling. The project team has investigated alternative models for carrying out the economic and hydrological simulations of alternative scenarios for Chesapeake Bay watershed. The team is currently investigating the REAP (Regional Environment and Agriculture Programming) model, which was developed by USDA-ERS. REAP includes multiple commodities and it estimates changes to regional environmental outcomes and economic welfare resulting from changing policies, technologies, and market conditions. Objective 4. Implement education, extension, and evaluation plans to spur adoption. Task 14. Education Plan, and Task 15. Extension Plan. These tasks are scheduled for years 3-5 of the project. Task 16. External Evaluation of the Project. As part of the project evaluation, the external evaluator, Dr. Jessica Schad, spoke with multiple external evaluators from other similar projects to share materials and best practices for evaluation of such a large, transdisciplinary research and outreach project. Dr. Schad also arranged and led a meeting between the project manager from a successful, award-winning USDA-NIFA grant and those on the search committee for the project manager position for this project. All IRB documents for the external evaluation work have been submitted and approved. Dr. Schad developed an interview guide for the year 1 project team interviews and, thus far, has conducted 14 interviews with team members.
Publications
|
Progress 04/01/19 to 03/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience:A key milestone for this project was the convening of the project's Stakeholder Advisory Board at an initial "all hands" kickoff meeting that was held on February 12, 2020. The 20-member Stakeholder Advisory Board includes farmers, consultants who provide technical assistance to farmers, local and state government officials in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, agribusiness industry association representatives, a Farm Bureau representative, a land developer, soil and water conservation district representatives, and representatives from environmental organizations. Changes/Problems:The COVID-19 situation began to impact project work in March 2020, as described above, and it will undoubtedly have an impact during the rest of 2020 and into 2021, especially on the scheduling of project workshops, events, and Stakeholder Advisory Board meetings. At the present time project meetings are being held entirely online and the project team is using online collaborative tools. Plans for field work beginning in spring 2020 continue within requirements and guidelines dictated by the COVID-19 situation. The project team is committed to continuing the scheduled work of the project to the extent possible, and will evaluate and adjust work schedules as needed. Challenges to agricultural production and food supply chains created by the COVID-19 situation are likely to come up during the project's engagement activities with stakeholders. The ability to overcome these challenges is one aspect of a resilient food system, and resilience is a concept closely related to sustainability. While no changes to project goals and objectives are anticipated, the COVID-19 situation will likely inform the team's work on, for example, the sustainability of local food supply chains compared to national/global food supply chains. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Seven PhD-level graduate research assistants have joined the project so far, out of a total of 14 once the project is fully staffed. These graduate students are working on Tasks 1 and 2 (one student), 7 (one student), 8 (one student), 10 (one student), 12 (two students), and 16 (one student). Four of these students had been hired in time to attend and participate in the February 12, 2020 project kickoff meeting, which provided them with experiential learning for engaging stakeholders in research. For all these students, this is their first large-scale transdisciplinary project. In addition to training within their respective disciplines, this project is providing them with professional development opportunities through learning from other disciplines, learning from stakeholders, and project research planning. One postdoctoral scholar has been hired on the project so far, with an additional two searches for postdocs underway. The postdoc who has been hired is working on Task 9. Through his work on the project, this postdoc has gained understanding of agricultural and behavioral economics in the context of water quality interventions and gained practical experience in web design and workshop organization. The two postdocs to be hired soon will work on Tasks 7, 8, 10, and 12. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Tasks 1 and 2. The February 12, 2020 project kickoff meeting was designed to engage critical communities of interest represented as members of the Stakeholder Advisory Board. Meeting notes were distributed to all Stakeholder Advisory Board members. Task 7. An online portal containing nitrogen (N) decision support tools was established to assist with making N fertilizer recommendations that credit cover crops and soil organic matter (https://extension.psu.edu/nitrogen-recommendations-for-corn). Task 9. The project team has so far spoken with over 40 members of the Chesapeake Bay region's agricultural technical assistance community. These conversations focused on the content of the planned technical assistance workshop, its outputs, and how it could be useful to technical assistance field staff. Several meetings have been held to coordinate the project team's work with others in the Chesapeake Bay region who are conducting related investigations including the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, The Nature Conservancy, and Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Tasks 1 and 2. The next step will be to convene a small planning group to begin planning the envisioning exercise, which will be the next major meeting with Stakeholder Advisory Board members. This meeting will be planned and held within the next reporting period, and is likely to be held in late summer or fall 2020. Outcomes will be to provide a clear vision of what "thriving agriculture" is, strategies for achieving that vision, identification of challenges or barriers in reaching it, and suggested solutions for overcoming those barriers. These outcomes will help frame the development of scenarios for testing the research hypotheses. Following the visioning session, project team researchers will meet collectively in a workshop format to develop a proposed scenario process and recommended scenarios, which will be shared at the next Stakeholder Advisory Board meeting in spring 2021 for input and finalization of scenarios to be tested. Task 3. The project team is planning to hold a high-profile public event on the economic and environmental sustainability of agriculture in urbanized landscapes. A diverse group of stakeholders will be invited including farmers, extension agents, representatives from soil and water conservation districts, Farm Bureau representatives, state and local government officials, NGOs such as waterkeepers and conservation nonprofits, and industry representatives. Task 4. This task is scheduled for years 3-4 of the project. Task 5. The project team anticipates that the formal process with Penn State, USDA-ERS, and IRI of obtaining approval to collaborate on the market analysis and valuation of organic and local product attributes using IRI scanner data will be completed. The team expects that a graduate research assistant will be hired to work on this project task, that data collection on local attributes of products in the IRI scanner database will begin, and that preliminary data analysis will also begin. Task 6. Once interview schedules and survey instruments on the potential of blockchain technology to expand markets for value-added products are finalized and have received Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, they will be administered to in the case study Chesapeake Bay region to small- and mid-scale farmers, local small packers and shippers, regional distributors, and institutional buyers to identify key bottlenecks to utilizing more local products from smaller scale farmers and to utilizing blockchain technology. Task 7. Field sites will be identified and implemented to test the new N fertilizer recommendation system. At each site a response series of increasing N fertilizer rates will be established to identify the economic optimum N fertilizer rate at each site. Measurements of cover crop N, C:N ratio, soil organic matter, and soil texture will be used to calculate N fertilizer recommendations. The actual economic N rate will be compared to the new N fertilizer recommended rate and the new tool will be adjusted as needed. The process of collecting soil and runoff samples will begin. Task 8. Calibration/validation of the SWAT model for the Susquehanna River Basin will be completed. Using the calibrated model, the project team will develop spatial targeting of manure/fertilizer management considering both land suitability and cropping patterns in the Susquehanna River Basin. The team will continue to develop the SWAT+ model (an upgraded version of SWAT) for the Spring Creek watershed (a sub-watershed of the Susquehanna River Basin) and compare it with SWAT. Task 9. The project team will conduct the workshop that has been postponed and begin collaborative field testing with members of the technical assistance community. The workshop will be held once COVID-19 no longer poses serious risks to the population. At the end of this workshop, attendees' interest in collaboratively testing different methods of farmer engagement will be assessed. From this larger group, a smaller group of technical assistance field staff will be convened to begin a collaborative process to design and implement these tests. By the next reporting period, the team plans to have designed and begun data collection on the first test. Task 10. Next steps include determining how to appropriately downscale data on N mass balance fluxes based on trade embedded resource accounting within, into, and out of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Downscaling will be done in a manner to align with other outputs from the project team. The project team will also be investigating tracking of phosphorous through these embedded resource accounting and trade flow tracking methods. Task 11. A baseline agent-based model of farmer behavior will be developed, and data will be collected in order to expand the current urban land use change work beyond the existing Baltimore metro area. Task 12. The adaptive management field in Pennsylvania is an approximately 60 ha production field in a corn-soy rotation. Operationally it will be divided into two drainage catchments. For the next two years, a standard corn-soy rotation will be implemented across both catchments to establish a baseline for water quality monitoring. In the third year, one catchment will begin to be managed with advanced cover crop and N fertilizer recommendations while the other will be maintained under baseline management. The advanced management will include interseeding cover crops in standing corn and soybeans and using N recommendations in corn that credit cover crop N recycling and N mineralized from soil organic matter. Lysimeters will be installed in drainage areas of each catchment and sampled for nitrate and ammonium concentrations. Surface runoff flumes will be installed to measure water budgets and periodic sampling of runoff nutrients. In Maryland, crops and treatment plots will be established and instrumentation will be installed in three research study sites at the University of Maryland Central Maryland Research and Education Center (CMREC). From these sites soil, leaching, cover crop, and yield data will be collected. In addition, a research program for new graduate research assistants will be developed that includes designing case studies on two farms and data collection protocols for CMREC studies. The project team expects to enter into research agreements with two farms for whole-farm case studies and then install instrumentation and collect baseline samples from these two farms. This team will also design questionnaire instruments for case study farmers and surrounding urbanizing areas. Task 13. The project team will be continuing discussions with USDA-ERS on possibilities for updating the REAP model, with particular attention to the hydrology/crop growth component. The team will also focus on obtaining geospatial and economic datasets necessary to run the REAP model for sub-watersheds within Chesapeake Bay watershed, with the Susquehanna River Basin a likely candidate. Tasks 14 and 15. These tasks are scheduled for years 3-5 of the project. As preparatory work for those tasks, the project team is conducting a literature review on how other large, interdisciplinary projects with an outreach component implemented outreach in their projects, to help fine-tune the outreach in this project. Task 16. Dr. Schad will continue the assessment of the project team's organizational efficacy and interdisciplinary team collaboration by follow-up interviews and/or short surveys with team members, and assess the project team's interactions with various stakeholders through interviews and/or surveys with the Stakeholder Advisory Board, for example. In order to assess whether the project will meet its long-term objectives, Dr. Schad will conduct a mail and online pre-survey of agricultural producers and other stakeholder groups in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. A follow up survey will be conducted in year 5 to determine how the project has changed attitudes and behaviors.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This project has four broad objectives and 16 tasks to achieve this goal, and the reporting here is organized by objective/task. This annual progress reportis coming at the 7-month mark of this project, which officially started on September 1, 2019. Objective 1. Engage closely with stakeholders using a shared discovery framework to envision desired 25-year futures for agricultural systems in urbanized landscapes that are economically sustainable while enhancing ecosystem services. Task 1. Stakeholder Advisory Board, and Task 2. Scenario Building with Stakeholder Advisory Board. Additional members were added to the project's Stakeholder Advisory Board to ensure comprehensive and diverse interests in agriculture across the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed case study region. An initial "all hands" kickoff meeting was planned and held on February 12, 2020 for both researchers and stakeholders. Approximately 25 research faculty, students and stakeholders attended and another 10 participated online. The kickoff meeting achieved meeting objectives of establishing relationships between and among diverse researchers and stakeholders who will be working closely together over the next five years on this project. The project overview and lightning talks during the meeting provided valuable background information to stakeholders on the research proposal design and objectives. The open discussion allowed stakeholders and researchers alike to explore priority issues, trends, visions challenges, and potential solutions to consider in meeting dual goals of supporting and enhancing agricultural productivity and environmental stewardship. Task 3. Networks of Engaged Stakeholders, and Task 4. Workshops with Stakeholder-Users. These tasks are scheduled for years 2-5 of the project (Task 3) and years 3-4 (Task 4). Objective 2. Carry out iterative research processes on markets and supply chains for productivity gains. Task 5. Market Analysis for Local and Organic Products. In order to gain access to the IRI (Information Resources, Inc.) supermarket and consumer panel scanner data needed to research the potential for productivity gains through market channels, a research collaboration has been initiated with USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS). The formal process with Penn State, USDA-ERS, and IRI of obtaining approval to collaborate on the market analysis and valuation of organic and local product attributes using IRI scanner data has begun. Task 6. Blockchain Technology to Expand Markets for Value-Added Products. Interview schedules and survey instruments on the potential of blockchain technology to expand markets for value-added products are being drafted. Objective 3. Carry out iterative research processes on tools, models, and analyses to improve total factor productivity (TFP) and nutrient use efficiency (NUE). Task 7. Field-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. An online portal containing nitrogen (N) decision support tools was established to assist with making N fertilizer recommendations that credit cover crops and soil organic matter (https://extension.psu.edu/nitrogen-recommendations-for-corn). Field sites to test N fertilizer recommendations in corn have been established or identified. Four on-farm sites in Pennsylvania were identified to conduct N fertilizer rate response trials that will be used to validate the N recommendations. In Virginia, preseason planning has occurred and field sites have been selected. Sampling will begin in early April and proceed through the summer crop season. Task 8. Watershed-Scale Nutrient Management Tools. The project team has developed a comprehensive Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model for the Susquehanna River Basin (SRB). The SRB occupies 43% of the Chesapeake Bay drainage area. The model was developed with about 1,000 sub-basins at the HUC-12 boundary scale and over 50,000 landscape units called HRUs in SWAT. The model is currently being finetuned to represent a baseline scenario for the watershed with best management practices (BMPs), and exploring the impacts of different manure management scenarios in the watershed. Task 9. Farmer-Stakeholder Experiments A technical assistance workshop is being organized will elicit best practices for engaging farmers about BMPs and conservation, as well as set the stage for further collaborative testing of such practices. Workshop materials have all been completed. A list of invitees has also been created and over 40 personal calls have been made to key people in the technical assistance community to advertise, and elicit feedback about, the workshop. All IRB documents for the workshop have been submitted and approved. The workshop had been scheduled for March 23, 2020, but due to the COVID-19 situation, it has been postponed. The project team is tentatively looking to reschedule the workshop to early June, though this will depend on the venue's availability and the status of the pandemic. Task 10. Regional-Scale Nutrient Flow Analysis. The project team has begun to gather necessary information (data and equations) to calculate N mass balance fluxes based on trade embedded resource accounting within, into, and out of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The team anticipates soon having a first-order approximation of N embedded in the production and consumption of commodities including corn, soybeans, fertilizer, and processed meat (including beef, chicken, and poultry). Task 11. Agent-Based Modelling. The project team has assembled initial data from pre-existing surveys of approximately 6,800 Pennsylvania farmers containing information on both crop and livestock production intensity, agricultural inputs and BMPs for both crop and livestock production. This data will form the basis for agent-based modeling of spatial agro-environmental choices farmers make. Using microlevel data on residential subdivision development from the Baltimore, Maryland, metro area the project team developed a model of density and timing of residential development at the individual parcel level. Task 12. Adaptive Management Sites. Teams from Penn State and the University of Maryland have met several time and shared GIS (geographic information systems) layers of potential field sites for the project's adaptive management watersheds. The project team has conducted field trips to potential sites as a team and with external advisors. At Penn State the team identified and obtained permission to establish one adaptive management site on Penn State farmland. Task 13. Economic Simulations and Modelling. The project team has investigated alternative models for carrying out the economic and hydrological simulations of alternative scenarios for Chesapeake Bay watershed. The team is currently investigating the REAP (Regional Environment and Agriculture Programming) model, which was developed by USDA-ERS. REAP includes multiple commodities and it estimates changes to regional environmental outcomes and economic welfare resulting from changing policies, technologies, and market conditions. Objective 4. Implement education, extension, and evaluation plans to spur adoption. Task 14. Education Plan, and Task 15. Extension Plan. These tasks are scheduled for years 3-5 of the project. Task 16. External Evaluation of the Project. As part of the project evaluation, the external evaluator, Dr. Jessica Schad, spoke with multiple external evaluators from other similar projects to share materials and best practices for evaluation of such a large, transdisciplinary research and outreach project. Dr. Schad also arranged and led a meeting between the project manager from a successful, award-winning USDA-NIFA grant and those on the search committee for the project manager position for this project. All IRB documents for the external evaluation work have been submitted and approved. Dr. Schad developed an interview guide for the year 1 project team interviews and, thus far, has conducted 14 interviews with team members.
Publications
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