Announcer: The following presentation
is part of the agronomy and horticulture seminar series
at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
-: Welcome everyone.
Thanks for being here for the agronomy
and agriculture seminar series.
It's nice to see full room for our speaker
today, Fernanda Kupeck.
She's a PhD candidate here in our department.
I have the pleasure to introduce her.
She will be presenting about experimentation
on Nebraska farm for sustaining and soil health management.
She grew up in Sao Pablo, Brazil.
She receives her bachelor's degree
in University of Sao Paulo
and her master's in University of Florida.
And then she started here at the Agronomy Department
and she's been advised by Dr. Andrea Basche.
She's looking to understand the biological
and ecological processes that governs
soil health and management practices.
She has an impressive records of peer review publications,
presentations at scientific meetings, extension events,
as well as involvement as a teaching assistant.
In her career, she has received more than 20 awards
recognizing her excellence in research
and extension activities.
And she's also involved in many of the leadership activities
within the department on the national level
within the societies.
We can mention among those awards,
the Gerald Motor Award in 2021
and the 2022 Extension Education Publication Award
awarded by the American Society of Agronomy.
Let's give them warm welcome and the floor is yours.
-: Thank you.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
-: Yeah, for those that are the first time in the seminar,
we have the presentation and we can have a round
of questions at the end and for those that are online,
they can pose the questions in the the chat.
Thank you.
-: Thank you Guillermo for the introduction
and good afternoon everyone.
Thank you for giving this time here and being with us.
For those joining us online, thank you for being with us.
I am very grateful for this opportunity to be here today
sharing with you some of the learnings
from my PhD projects over the last four years
here in Nebraska.
So I'll be glad to take any of your thoughts, comments,
feedback that you might have at the end
of this presentation.
So this is the agenda I'm suggesting for us.
I'll start with a brief introduction of our project
background and then I'll spend most of the time
in one of the most recent and exciting projects
I'm working on which involve in that interviews
with farmers to understand the influence
of social and information that works on farmers' response
to sustaining soil health management.
So it's a fairly different type of data to work on,
both from a data collection and analysis standpoint,
but very important, right?
To understand the human dimensions
of agricultural decision making,
hopefully to help us to achieve
long-term sustainability goals.
And then I will also briefly show you
some of the multi-year on farm research work
that we have been doing,
looking at the effect of management practices
on soil and agronomic responses.
But for the sake of time,
I won't be able to cover that in detail.
But if you are interested,
I invite you to join my defense seminar,
which is right around the corner in this same room
on April 12th where I'll be talking more in detail on this
multi-year on farm research project.
And at the end I'll bring some summary,
what we have learned so far
and how that might support your work.
So I think this is my first time presenting to a broader
audience, both in our department in the college in general.
So I wanna start this presentation sharing with you
a little bit of my first experiential
learning opportunities in life
and what motivates me to work in agriculture
in our food system.
So you're seeing here pictures in our farm operation
in Brazil on the top with my cousins
during harvest operation and the bottom with my father.
And this is where we would spend the majority of vacation
time in Brazil, which is December, January,
experiencing agriculture in a rural settings.
But then the rest of the year I would grow up in an urban
center, Sao Paulo, for you who might be aware,
is a 12 plus million population city.
As you can imagine, we were restricted by land area
on how we grow our crops
and my parents started this home garden
and my sister and I, we would grow our own fruits
and vegetables during the year.
So having this opportunity to experience agriculture,
both urban and rural settings is what motivates me
to enjoy and join studying agriculture.
And if you ask me to draw this last 10 years of my life
in a piece of paper,
I would probably bring you this paper here.
So imagine that you are giving a piece of paper now
and ask to draw your entire career.
And this is the activity I was recently part of,
the Preparing Future Faculty program here at UNL.
And I shared this with you, as you can tell,
I need to improve a lot of my drawing skills.
But I shared this with you because at the end of this
activity we had to work on our why statement.
So thinking on our why rather than our
what and what we really want in a better world
for those that we serve.
And this is my why, to explore opportunities for advancing
practical knowledge and technical skills
so that leaders are equipped to promote
sustainable food system.
So hopefully you are going to see this
why throughout my presentation today
and why this opportunity here at UNL was very exciting to me
because I joined in 2019, the Resilient Cropping Systems lab
led by my great advisor, Dr. Andrea Basche,
to work on the on-farm research network
as part of this Nebraska Soil Health initiative.
So there was a total of 17 studies
that were assigned back in 2016 or 17.
And farmers, they were required to conduct
a five year on-farm research and demonstration
of soil health management.
What I mean by soil health management systems,
practices that maximize biodiversity
like crop rotation, organic amendment,
crop and livestock integration,
practices that minimize soil disturbance
like the use of no-till,
or practices that maximize continue living roots
like the use of cover crops.
Each of those 17 farmers, they were testing different things
because they had a chance to select
what are those management treatments
that they were interested in.
So I will keep that in mind because as you can imagine,
there's a lot of complexity going
on considering that each of those fields,
they were able to select what treatment
they wanna to study and how them I look like in the field.
So farmers had to choose two
contrasting management comparisons.
So one, a common practice to them and a second one,
a management that was intended to improve soil health.
And most of them had cover crops in some capacity,
but they also included different species comparisons.
Some of them had grazing components or crop rotation.
In terms of data collection, that was also part of the UNL
on-farm research annual reports.
We had information on agronomic management form,
which includes all the information that farmer,
the decisions they made throughout that growing season,
cash crop, yield monitor data,
and also soil health assessments
that you and our extension and also NRCS helped us
to work on that, collect that data.
I have been talking a lot about soil health.
I know some in the room here already know that term,
but I was wondering if,
how often do you hear soil health as part of your
interactions with your clientele, your stakeholder group?
So if you can please take the time to scan this QR code
and we'll take you to the question
or you can go to Slido.com
and the password will be soil health.
So if you can please take,
I will give a couple seconds here.
Just wondering, how often do you hear the term soil health?
No.
Okay, we are getting some results already.
We have a couple options here.
It seems a majority says often, 67%.
Yeah, that's what I was expecting.
And yeah, soil health is a popular topic, right?
And some of you have already seen this definition
and that really emphasize soil function, right?
And we know that water cycling is a big component
of soil health.
And you are seeing this picture here
from my very first field visit
when I joined the program in Nebraska.
And you are seeing here a fence line
separating two different management, right?
On the right hand side you have crop residue
without cover crops, on the left hand side,
cover crops during the wintertime.
And as you might recall in 2019 when this picture was taken,
we had several flooding events
that happen in the state, right?
And you see water on the surface on the right hand side.
So that might tells us that the soil on the right hand side
in those portions of the field might not be functioning
as we would expect in regards to this water cycling, right?
So the point I wanna make here today is
that soils has its context, it's inherent capability,
but then the way we manage and the land use on top of it
is its function expression of its health.
And I really like to bring some analogies.
Why I am saying this, because cover crops are
not new, right?
I recently got some final records
as part of a birthday gift, which I love it.
But I remember growing up and my parents
simply getting rid of those, and I was,
why that is happening, right?
And then the same applies to cover crops
and many other practices that are known
to support soil health.
Those practices are not new, right?
So there is this reviving of those practices
and part of it is because of many legislative movements
across the country supporting research
and also synergistic partnership for large scale adoption
of soil health management practices.
You are seeing here this map from 2019,
I'm sure a data version will have way more things going
on across the country and it's exciting to see this support
that soil health is gaining over time.
But when we look at the actual adoption,
you are seeing here at table with a couple practices,
we have a capacity and the current adoption.
And when we average across those practices,
we still see that adoption is low,
less than 14% of the current US land capacity
is adopting those practices,
which bring us to this question,
relates to to the human dimensions, right?
What are some of the motivations of farmers
to continue adopting those practices
even with our monetary incentive, right?
I mentioned that the farmers that were part
of the Soil Health Initiative,
they were under Equipped contracts within NRSCS
and the question is, will they continue those practices
after those five years conservation programs, right?
So the persistence here or the continued use
is very important.
And what is motivating this part of the research
that I'm working on,
we are partnering with a faculty in the Agricultural
Education Leadership and Communication Department,
Dr. Taylor Ruth,
and we are developing this framework you are seeing here,
which considers different theories
to understand human dimensions and how we make decisions,
which as you might expect, a very complex topic, right?
So you are seeing here in different colors,
different theories, those theories, they have been studied,
they have been revised for decades.
And help us to understand how humans make decisions.
So you are seeing here on top farmers' affiliative network,
how that influence their general beliefs,
their attitudes towards soil health,
their willingness to join those conservation programs,
and you are seeing here the persistence or this adoption
aspect that we are interested in looking at.
So this framework is very complex
and but there are three main research questions
that we are interested in looking at.
The first one, how social and informational networks
influence farmers to sustaining use
of soil health practices.
A second one, the aspect of weather,
how weather variability facilitate
or hinder farmers sustaining use of soil health practices.
And third one, how do farmers respond
to different communication interventions
related to soil health?
For the sake of time,
I will focus today in this first research question,
which look at the social and informational networks.
But if you're interested,
another plug here for the Great Plains Conference
will be talking more in detail on the role of climate
as a motivating factor for behavior.
So in terms of data collection and analysis,
like I mentioned, it's a different type of data, right?
So think about field experiment or your lab experiment
where you need to decide on the treatments, replications,
what samples to collect, when to collect.
The same applies to qualitative research.
There are some things that we need to take into account
to make sure that the research process
has been done in a systematic way.
So I'm showing here some of the main points
of the methodology.
First, this research needs to undergo human subject approval
by the UNL Institutional Review Board.
In terms of sampling, we are interested in farmers
who are part of the soil health initiative
because they have been part of this program
for five years adopting those practices.
And we are interested in that persistence aspect
that I mentioned in the previous framework.
We are conducting, well, we conducted
semi-structure in-depth interviews.
Those interviews lasted from one and a half to two hours.
We ask questions, several questions to farmers
related to sources of information, knowledge exchange,
their experience with on-farm research
and conservation program.
And we we also have some meeting observations
and project documents that I'm gonna summarize here today.
And in terms of validation process,
again to make sure we are conducting the research in a
systematic way, we use three different validation process,
which the research suggests we use at least two.
In this case we're looking at peer debriefing,
member checking and audit tribes.
So okay, giving some of the results here.
The way we present results is looking at themes.
What are some of the common themes that emerge
out of those conversations with farmers?
And I'm gonna highlight here today
five different teams as it relates to farmers,
social and informational networks.
The first one, land tenure.
Those interactions that farmers have
between landowner and land tenant,
especially when we think about different motivations
and the beliefs related to soul health.
This play a role on farmer's social informational networks.
There is also perceived acceptance.
What farmers think other will think of them
if they adopted or not certain practices.
This is something that they also mentioned
during the interviews.
Family farming tradition,
the style of farming or food production
carried by previous de generation.
This is something that they also take into account
when making decisions related to soil health practices.
Co-learning, all the educational approach involve sharing
soil health knowledge and experiences,
not only among farmers but also among
other agricultural stakeholders,
that is also very important.
And finally, on farm research experimentation
and adaptive management.
So the opportunity to have hands-on learning experiences
on their farm operation,
and in particular this project that had a very specific
aspect which was an extension involvement
with federal conservation programs.
So what I'm gonna do now, for each of those five themes,
I'm gonna bring some quotes,
what the farmer said during those interviews
so you can have an idea on what they mean
by each of those things that I'm presenting here.
So first, land tenure.
We know that about 40% of the US land
involves some sort of land owner and operator agreements.
So we would expect that yes,
land tenure is something very important in their decisions
of adopting soil health practices,
particularly when we talk about short
versus long-term rent agreements.
So this is very important and some of the farmers mentioned,
you were seeing a quote here,
those relationships might be some type of antagonist, right?
They have different motivations,
different beliefs relates to soil health
and this play a role on their decisions.
There is also this other farm here
who are thinking about renting part of their land
and they said we are looking for a person
that will honor that rental agreement.
And that rental agreement includes adding cover crops
as part of the system.
And even though the majority said that there is
some challenges, right?
When you were talking about those relationships,
this last quote here shows us
there has been more opportunities on those interactions
to talk about soil health and make sure
they can have mutually beneficial goals.
Perceived acceptance is another theme that I mentioned.
So while farmers think others will think of them,
there is one thing that the farmer mentioned here.
It's all about farming more ground faster,
being the first one in the field
and the first out of the field in the fall.
So this perceived acceptance that the farmer described here
and something that they point out
how that affect the young generation of farmers, right?
How is that perceived acceptance
being passed through other generational farmers?
There is this other farmer who instead of saying
perceived acceptance, term this "cost of perception."
So you are seeing here as perceived as different,
weird and bad.
So there is a perception and there is a cost to me,
is what the farmers said.
So and this effect also how they select different practices.
So this farmer mentioned for example, no till,
the crops following no till might not look nicer
early in the spring, that's what this farmer said.
And there is this cost of perception
on how they decided on not adopting certain practices.
And then interesting it seems that this pressure
among the community is not as strong
among farmers who have more integrative systems.
For example, crop and livestock.
You are seeing here this quote, this farmer mentioned,
"People calling out and planting
when you think the ground is too wet
but we have cattle and the cattle is making us money
so we don't feel that pressure to get out in the field
when others think we should be out."
So there is this also aspect, the perceived acceptance,
was not as strong among farmers
with more integrative systems.
Family farming tradition.
Remember the analogy I made with vinyl discs
at the beginning?
A lot of those practices, they are not new, right?
And that is what the farmer mentioned here,
except for technology and time
and the fact that we are able to learn fast,
except of that, all those things have already been done.
So we're not new practices.
We also see farmers mentioning aspects for example,
when the family immigrated from Germany
brought some practices for example, sweet clover,
planting oats and rotating.
This other farmer here mentioned
how the dad had some rye, had cattle, hogs and sheep.
So when we ask a farmer, what are some of the soil health
practices they have tried
or would like to try in their field,
a lot of them made this connection with previous generation
of farming tradition,
which was very strong among this group of farmers.
The other aspect, co-learning.
A lot of, in this team farmers mentioned
the importance of early adopters.
How those influence influence their decisions
and opportunities to learn with them.
And as you can see in this quote here,
the farmer is mentioning how that one-on-one interaction
with other farmer, learning from each other,
people doing their own experiment
and learning from each other is very important.
And there were, some of our interviews,
they had extension and also consulting roles
in addition to their farm operation.
And this co-learning theme
was very strong among that group of farmers.
And you are seeing here another quote of farmer mentioning
the importance of also sharing the challenges, right?
The struggles, how we learn from each practice,
so in this particular one,
looking at how cover crop termination timing
might affect subsequent cash crop pest and diseases.
So how we share that with other farmers,
the learnings that we had in our field.
And then this last quote here,
there is importance of meeting farmers where they're at,
they are in their learning process, right?
Some farmers, they are more systems thinkers,
they look at the whole farm approach management, others no.
So how do we reach farmers where they are
in their learning process?
There is a lot of communication strategies
to approach those farmers.
Okay, another activity we did with a group of farmers
was during the 2020 On Farm Research Network annual meeting,
if you recall, this meeting had a special soil health
and cover crop focus update.
So farmers who were part of the soil health initiative
came to this event, some of them.
And we also had a broad audience, right?
Those that were part of in general of the UNL
On Farm Research Network.
So in that year, we did an activity with farmers
where we gave them this decision making mapping exercise.
So you're saying here we gave this piece of paper
that have different circles numbered from one to five
and you see decisions about my operation at the center.
And you see here at the bottom different, oops, sorry,
you see here at the bottom different groups of people.
So what we did, we asked farmers to rate how influential
those groups of people are on their decision.
Both general farm decision but also decisions
related to soil health.
So those groups of people placed closer to the center
of the circle we're seeing as having stronger influence.
So sharing with you the results here,
you see both overall in soil health related decisions,
the different groups.
Remember that the closer to the center, higher influence.
Look at those groups here,
those were ranked by those farmers
as groups of people having the largest influence
on their decision.
Both soil health related and overall farming decision.
So other farmers in the community, family members,
crop advisor, consultant, extension,
conservationists within NRCS.
So remember the last point of the teams
that I wanna bring to you relates
to on-farm experimentation and adaptive management.
So you were seeing here some of codes
related to the importance of few days.
How that brings more, again, that co-learning opportunity,
farmers interacting with each other,
interacting with agricultural stakeholders.
And how that can help other farmers
who might not be adopters at least give it a try
on some of those practices, right?
And this is what you are seeing here
on the second quote where the farmer mentioned
that a neighbor farmer mentioned
pretty much due to that field days,
they were going to give it a try to cover crops.
So again, seeing the role that early play
on those decision makers in around their community.
In terms of the soil health initiative,
remember that this is a very unique aspect.
We are partnering, UNL Extension with NRCS
and this farmer here bring some very interesting quote.
Some of the information that they were already seeing
anecdotally, they were able to bring
what the farmer is saying, real science.
So we are able to have results, analysis,
and prove things that they have been seeing
already in their field.
Also in terms of experimentation,
there is a lot of trial and error, right?
And this farmer here mentioning, you need to do first
on a small scale.
So farmers feel comfortable with those practices
to apply later on A larger scale.
And this last quote here,
I really like it because show that the farmers
value the importance of long-term research.
That is something we think is important.
And seeing farmers mentioning we need to have 3, 4, 5 year
On farm research so we are able to,
that's when we gain the most,
that's when we are able to prove that certain practice
perform and how the practice perform in a challenging,
in a normal, in above average year.
So this farmer here mentioning the importance
of long-term on-farm research.
In terms of that five year on-farm research summary
for those fields that were part of the initiative,
remember that I mentioned the majority of them,
they had cover crops in some capacity, right?
So those are the fields you are seeing here, sorry.
Ouch.
Okay so this is the, each of those lines showing
some of the treatment comparisons
that the farmers were doing in their field.
And we were able to track yield and soil health impact
over that five years.
So for example, you're seeing here yield impacts,
it can be neutral the majority of the time.
We also had positive impact on corn and soybean
and small grain yield but also negative impact.
And in terms of soil health impact,
we see here either neutral or positive impact.
Again, all this information,
we were able to compile reports every year,
so if you're interested in looking at,
they are all available online.
So up to this point I share with you things
related to farmer's network.
And then now I wanna focus on those three studies
that I mentioned to you that I'll focus more in detail
during my defense seminar.
But I wanna briefly bring here
because one of the topics that came out of those interviews
were related to soil health testing.
So this is one way that farmers can learn about soil health
because it's not only about the network
but some of sources of information, right?
And soil health testing
was something that farmers brought up.
So for example, you are seeing this quote,
a farmer mentioning how they compare the traditional soil
testing with some other new commercially available tests
to see special in terms of fertilizer recommendations,
how that play.
But there is also farmers mentioning,
when we talk about saw health testing,
that this is a evolving work, right?
There's a lot of things to learn,
a lot of research that needs to be done
to understand better how saw health testing works.
And this farmer here mentioning
that they are waiting for in order to invest more time
and resources on soil health testing.
But they acknowledge that it's important
that the industry is trending on that direction.
And again, this last quote here,
the farmer mentioning in terms of soil health testing,
"Can we know how much we need to apply?
Not applying excess, not applying insufficient
but the right amount of nutrients
so that the biology of the soil can work as well."
So soil health assessment.
We want to link a management to outcomes, right?
So those farmers were testing different management
because they were expecting some outcomes.
That outcomes can be profitability, biodiversity,
resilience against dry conditions,
different management interest there.
But we cannot for every management expect the same outcomes
because there are some intervening factors.
For example, climate geology, durations,
soil texture, right?
So we cannot expect the same management
to give the same outcomes
because of some of those intervening factors.
And that's where assessment comes, those physical,
chemical and biological properties.
But they are not the end to themselves, right?
They are just a way to link management to outcomes.
And that's where a lot of the progress
has been done over the last year.
How we are able to link this management to outcomes
through this soil health testing.
And this is one thing that we look at as part of my program
as well, which like I mentioned,
I'll be presenting more in detail during the defense,
but what we did, we look at physical,
chemical and biological properties
from farm available soil health testing.
We selected 10 of those fields
that were part of this initiative.
And like I mentioned before,
those fields were testing different practices, right?
Because if primarily had a chance to choose
what treatment comparison.
So you are seeing here a list of things,
for example, cover crop, species,
crop and livestock integration, cash crop rotation,
and there was also differences in terms of field history.
Some of those fields,
they were adopting cover crops for the first time.
Some of those fields, they were adopting for over 12 years.
The same applied to tillage,
some of them are doing strip tillage,
some of them have been no till for over 20 years.
So as you can imagine, there's a lot of challenge in terms
of how we look at this data,
how we make sense of this, how we analyze it.
And one of the way we have done
is to create those indexes that you were seeing here.
So think about putting each of those fields in a scale
from less to more diversified
or ecologically intensified it in terms of crop diversity,
years of cover crop use, years without soil disturbance,
organic amendment, and crop and livestock.
So we apply all this classification index
to a series of physical, chemical, and biological properties
that are available in soil health assessments.
Some of them were part of the protocol
the NRCS developed to look at water infiltration,
for example, water content, fog density.
But there are also some other properties
that are available on the Haney test,
Some of you might be familiar,
this is a commercially available test
that also includes some calculations
in terms of fertilizer recommendation.
So I just wanna point out those calculations
are still evolving, right?
But we were able to look at the most recent one up to 2020.
So I will show details on of the results of this
in a couple weeks.
But I just wanna share what we have learned on this project.
First that cover crop,
when we look at on those different indexes
that we look at, cover crop HAD the greatest impact
on change in soil properties
that are closely related to carbon-nitrogen dynamics.
We also observed that those fields that were adopting
cover crops for long-term, at least eight years
were the ones that had the highest,
the greatest biological activity.
And that result in potential synthetic fertilizer
and economic savings,
especially on those fields adopting cover crops.
So when we consider organic nitrogen pools
in fertilizer recommendations, that was what we were seeing.
All right, when we talk about soil health implementation,
this is context specific, right?
You are seeing here this quote, a farmer mentioning
that cover crops has been working well
in some challenging stereotypes
and made the yield less variable.
But this farmer also mentioned
that cover crops are not a blanket operation.
So this means that every year we need to make adjustments
depending on the weather,
depending on the goals of each farmer.
And I like this quote here
that the farmer mentioned that cover crop,
there are so many options within the cover crop spectrum
to customize to each farm and ranch scenario.
So this motivates us to look on another project
you are seeing here where we wanted to compare,
manage soils to a reference state
and investigate those relationships with crop yields.
So remember all those farmers
part of the Soil health initiative,
we selected four of them for this project
because those four fields,
they had a cover crop versus no cover crop comparison.
And we also identified a reference site.
Those were grasslands heights
adjacent to each of those farmers' field.
And we look at two different things that I'm showing here.
First, soil health,
how that is related to a reference state.
This is some work that has been started
here in our department by Dr. Mahar John,
so what we did, we calculated relative soil health,
basically looking at soil property values
for cover crop and the no cover crop
and how that relates to the reference soil.
And also in terms of sampling,
we get questions from farmers,
how should we sample for soil health?
So this is also something we did in this study.
We look at how sampling intensity
affect the role of management differences,
looking at cover crop, no cover crop and reference soils.
So what we have learned,
and I'll share again our detail as part of the defense,
but reference soils,
they were able to capture those trends in soil health
potential across soils and on farm characteristics.
And we were able to see the cover crops
reduce the gap in soil health
between the managed field, which was the no cover crop site
and the reference soils which were our grasslands heights
in the short term, here we were looking at three years,
that's when we sampled those fields
when they have been adopting cover crops for three years.
And we also look at the greater difference
in water infiltration management
between reference and no cover crop sites
due to higher sampling intensity.
So again, looking at high sampling intensity
and we also need to make sure we frame soil health metrics
relative to a reference state.
And then the last study I wanna show here
is in terms of carbon and nitrogen dynamics.
So we know there's a lot of conversation going
on in terms of participation in a carbon economy, right?
All those payments for ecosystem services,
even though it was something we didn't ask farmers
during this interviews, they brought up that.
And there were kind of mixed feelings
among that community of farmers.
So some of them demonstrating some frustration
because they have been adopting those practices
for longer term and and they were not eligible
for some of those programs.
But there are also farmers showing
that some of those programs, they are good in some way,
shape or form, you just need to see what works in your farm.
So we were looking in this last study
in terms of how carbon and nitrogen
associated with different soil organic matter fractions
responded to three years of cover crop.
So we look at the same fields,
those four fields that were part of the previous study.
In this one we were looking more specific on carbon
and nitrogen within each soil organic matter fraction.
So you're seeing here example of our experimental design
in the lab, how we did this fractionation in the lab
and how that relates to different
soil organic matter fractions.
So I know it's a lot of information here,
but thinking about that as your checking
and savings account,
we were extracting different soil matter fractions,
two main ones, particularly particulate organic matter
and the mineral associated organic matter.
So your checking account is your particulate organic matter.
So that plan derived soil organic matter,
whereas the savings account
is your mineral associated organic matter.
So thinking about that carbon-nitrogen that is distorted
and protected against microbial decay.
So this is what we did as part of this study
to look at how carbon and nitrogen
within different soil organic matter fractions
respond to cover crop adoption.
And I'll share more details on my defense.
I hope by this time you're all convinced
that you should join as well.
But what we learned in this particular project is
that soil minelogy is very important,
especially for stabilizing cover crop for the long term.
We were able to see the systems with increased perenniality,
those reference sites,
they were the ones that were able to store
most of the carbon nitrogen
within soil organic matter fraction.
However, in the short term, for the cover crops,
we're not able to see improvement in carbon-nitrogen,
particularly in more protected soil organic matter.
Thinking on that, checking that savings account
that I mentioned in the previous slide.
So what have we learned from crop, soil,
Social science research?
First, cover crops had the most weight on soil properties
and can reduce fertilized use,
particularly farmers adopting that in the long term.
So thinking about this is not a one year return
on investment, right?
We were thinking about practices that might accumulate
benefits relatively low over time.
Cover crops closed the soil health gap,
but on farm experiments must be sampled intentionally.
Carbon dynamics are very complex
and cover crops might not increase in the short term.
And finally, the social networks and sources of information
that I started my presentation today,
which are very critical in farm decision making.
And what I wanna bring here, closing this presentation
with a couple of other studies
that has been already published
looking at social networks, how they are important.
So you are seeing here,
some of you might be familiar with the research
and extension programming in North Dakota,
and I'm quoting here some of the information
from the abstract of those research papers.
So network-based approach have been proving successful
in encouraging on farm adoption
of soil health building practices.
This other study here where they look at farmers in Oregon
responses to climate change.
How central individuals and entities,
particularly beginning farmers,
they can act as bridge linking different groups of people.
There's other study here looking at the role that crop
advisors and certified professionals play
as conservation intermediate.
So they can facilitate adoption of practices on the field.
So how can we work together
with this group of people and certified professionals?
And finally, collaborative research as a boundary work.
This study here, very interesting,
they look at some of the factors that facilitates
success of those collaborative research,
very similar to what we did
as part of the soil health initiative.
So you're seeing here some of the main aspects
that they mentioned.
Having mutual beneficial goals,
making sure that the groups of people
have mutual beneficial goals,
share ownership of the collaborative research process,
build trust, which is something that takes time, right?
Integrating knowledge and institutional alignment.
So this is some of the research that has been already
published I think was really nice to bring
what those other groups of people
have been researching and can help understanding
our group here in Nebraska.
So I wanna finish my presentation here,
sharing what we have learned,
how that might support your work.
First, the importance of co-learning
and peer learning opportunities, right?
That was something that the farmers brought very important,
they learn from each other, one-on-one interactions.
So this is very important.
How can we support more co-learning,
peer learning opportunities?
Also long-term and multi-location on farm research
coupled with a small plot research.
So for this particular initiative, we did not have,
we didn't include a small plot research,
but the farmers mentioned the importance
of long-term on farm research.
So studying those practices 2, 3, 4, 5 years,
how that is important.
Also educational opportunities for future generational
farmers and agriculture stakeholders
and how can we leverage networks of trusted professionals
to meet the technical, social and experiential assistance
needed related to soil health.
With that, I would like to thank you so much for your time
and being here today
and I'll be glad to take any questions or comments
that you might have.
Thank you.
Guillermo: Thank you Fernanda
for the presentation and we'll open the floor.
So if you wanna say question,
we can pass around the microphone.
Audience Member: That was very nice.
-: Thank you.
Audience Member: I'm curious, the average size
of the farmers in your survey
compared to the average size of farms in Nebraska.
Do you know what that comparison is?
-: So the average farmers working with us
as part of this ON Farm Research,
they were around 80 to 120, 150 acres field farm.
Audience Member: For their total farm.
-: Oh, okay.
We haven't asked that.
I mean in terms of the amount of land
that they work on, that's a great question.
We do not include that as part of the interviews,
but I would assume they might be considered
small, medium size, small,
medium size farmers here in in Nebraska.
You're welcome.
Audience Member: If I understood your
group of farmers correctly, they all have been in a program
for three to five years working with these things.
Do you think this created a natural bias in the results
compared to a random selection of producers out there
and how that would influence results
in terms of identifying important points
for increasing the use of cover crops
and other soil health improvement methods?
-: Yeah, this a very important question.
When we talk about qualitative research,
one of the points that is often emphasized
that we cannot generalize
sometimes the results in qualitative research, right?
Because we are working with a specific group of farmers
that there is this boundary work in this group of people.
I agree, certainly we could have interviewed other farmers,
the ones that have not been in conservation programs,
but I wouldn't say biased in terms of the research aspect
because we were very interested in getting rich descriptions
of their experiences of this group of farmers.
But certainly interviewing others
could bring different perspectives to to our results.
But certainly the results might not be generalizable
across the country or even across the stage.
Audience Member: Look, from my experience,
what I've seen is that human beings
take decisions in terms of one interest or another, right?
So this is common.
So what I'm seeing is that as farmers profit
is a main driver for our farming operation decisions, right?
But my question is those farmers have another incentive
for being there in the group
and for practicing soil health sustainable practices.
Could you identify another one apart from profits or?
-: Yeah, no,
we know that profitability is certainly important,
but it's not only the only thing, right?
There's so many other motivations
on how farmers do different practices.
So it could be, for example,
they have in in this program for five years,
did they develop the habit of having those practices
as part of their operation or not?
Because a lot of them,
you can hear from very contrasting ideas,
some farmers would say that, for example,
cover crops would pay,
others would say that cover crop would not pay.
And both of them might be right in their scenario
in their farm operation
and how they are managing those practices, right?
So I think it's very, profitability is part of the equation,
but it's not the only one.
And there are many other motivations that farmers have.
In this group of people, for example,
there are other motivations to be part of this program
and adopting those practices.
And of that answer exactly your question,
you're interested in a different, yeah,
feel free to follow up with you.
Audience Member: Just to follow up on that question.
I know in your study you had a lot of cover crops involved,
but I was wondering if there was a cover crop
which was like a cash cover crop.
Do you have any of those involved in your study
that might give some financial incentive
to the farmers and that might change their, you know?
-: Yeah, there were some farmers
who were part of the rotation they included example Ryan,
they were using zero right harvest
as their seeds for production.
And that could help yes, to alleviate some of their costs.
And it's interesting, this comment you make
because another, it reminds me one aspect of the interview.
I remember one farmer mentioning that when you are more,
you are using more integrative approaches in your farm,
like integrating livestock, adding cover crops,
rotating cash crop, you make the farm sometimes
less reliance on external, right?
Farmers, they rely on a lot of people, seed providers,
fertilizer providers, machinery providers,
so this farmer in the interview was mentioning
that when they integrate more things in their farm,
the flow of information, the flow of good,
it chains on their farm.
So yeah, some of them they had,
they used it right and they were harvesting that seed.
Audience Member: I've got the microphone.
-: Okay.
Audience Member: Did any of the farmers
in your survey have seed corn?
And the reason I ask that is because of early harvesting,
it would seem to permit the opportunity for cover crops
and perhaps even livestock grazing.
-: Yeah, yeah, that's a good question.
I don't think they, they had for seed corn,
but there was one farmer who was looking at early
and lay maturity soybeans.
That was the only aspect that I remember at farmers
who were interested in looking
at how they can adjust their cash crop growth
so they can integrate more cover crops
and have more growth time window for cover crops.
But I don't think seed corn was there.
Carol: Fernanda, that was a great presentation.
Thank you very much for putting all these together.
And I have two questions actually.
The first one is, how challenging was for you
as a PhD a student to work like you know,
in crop production,
I mean soil science and then like take some part of your
work and immerse yourself in social science.
How difficult was from like, you know,
you get trained like heavily on doing like quantitative
research and then going into qualitative research.
So that's my first question.
The second one is, what is the next step for this project?
What is NRCS envisioning for these?
So after getting like these results that you know,
are very promising and the farmers
were really actively involving these,
so there's these co-development,
like there is the new trend of doing research
with the community, so what is the second phase of this?
So thank you.
-: Thank you, thank you Carol for the questions.
Yeah, I remember finishing my master program in Florida,
had only experience with small research,
was doing everything on agricultural research station
for the university and then suddenly came to Nebraska
and had those large fields working,
adopting those practices.
It was very challenging, a very learning opportunity for me.
I really enjoyed that aspect
because it challenged me so many ways.
And since the beginning I had interest in extension.
And I think a lot of the work in extension
we really need to understand this human aspect of it.
So I remember one of the very first meetings
with Andrea and Darren, I mentioned that interest
in extension and adding a social component as part of this
project and we got to connect with the right people, right?
So then we, that's how we contacted Dr. Taylor Ruth
in the agricultural leadership and education department
who has been instrumental in guiding me
on how to do those analysis, right?
It's completely different type of data.
We are talking here about a hundred pages of transcripts,
how we make sense of that.
So I also attribute to Dr. Ruth to guiding me
and mentoring in this process as well, has been critical.
And the second question, next steps.
Actually, I think there is already,
the next steps are under way.
We have Grace and other student in our department here
working in a kind of a second evolution
of this initiative, right?
There are new farmers who enroll
or consider as part of this.
I think in this project they're also looking
at adding the research station component to the research.
But I think a lot of the learnings we had through this first
interaction of this project
has been guiding some of the conversations
that interim advisor in with NRCS have been
designing other collaborations with farmers
in across the state.
Carol: Thank you.
Audience Member: I promise it's the last one.
-: Okay.
Audience Member: Within your research,
how would you characterize the farmers?
Like the operation?
Do you have irrigation?
No irrigation?
Another main variable there that could have affected
the responses in the interview
or their decisions for cover cropping or?
-: Yeah, in terms of operation we had
the majority was irrigated, but we also have some dryland.
Because the majority, if you look at the map at the end
with the ones that were included in the reports,
they were either central or eastern Nebraska.
So majority, we had some irrigated, some dryland.
In terms of aspects of the farmer community,
we had a good mix.
Some of them are early adopters of those practices.
They have been doing that for years.
Some of them they were trying for the first
time, cover crops.
So I think there was a good group there
of those that are ready into it.
And those are the farmers actually
that didn't want to add a no cover crop
as part of their treatment comparison.
And we also have farmers who are doing
that for the first time, and those are the ones that agree,
"Okay, I want to have a no cover crop check
because this is a common practice to me."
So think that would be the main aspect I would bring.
Audience Member: Very good presentation.
I know you mentioned that important aspects of farmers
looking to extension folks and so forth for guidance.
But my question is, there's a tremendous industry
within Nebraska with farm advisors
and whatever you might wanna call them,
is there, do you get a feel that there is enough training
for those people to be able to pick up
upon this kind of research
and start incorporating it in their advice
and guidance to growers?
-: That's a great question.
And in fact, couple weeks ago
I was actually in DC with the Tri Society,
the agronomic crop and soils
advocating for research funding.
And the Farm Bureau is a high topic right at this moment.
And we were discussing that with some of the legislators
as well, how can we have that as part of the Farm Bureau?
We need workforce development,
we need to make sure that we have enough training
on those groups of people,
especially now looking at those carbon markets,
how they're gonna sample those fields
and absolutely the the training is in need,
absolutely, I agree.
Guillermo: Okay, thank you Fernanda.
We are on time to finish.
So I'll just give a round applause.
-: Thank you.
-: Your presentation.
And a reminder from next week we have
as our guest speaker Dr. Eduardo Santo,
associate professor in microbiology
from the university, from Kansas State University,
who will be presenting about novel technologies
for monitoring infield
and farm scale greenhouse gas emissions.
So you're all invited from next week in this at 3:30.
Thank you.
-: Did you have question on the chat?
Man: No.
Great presentation.
-: Thank you. Thank you.
How about the time? How that works?
-: Perfect.
-: Nice job. -: Thank you.