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The Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture
2012 Shivvers Memorial LectureSandra Steingraber will be the speaker for the 2012 Shivvers Memorial Lecture in the Sun Room of the ISU Memorial Union on March 4 at 7 PM. The title of her lecture is Environmental Pollution, Climate Change, and Our Health. Steingraber, a biologist, is the author of several books, including Raising Elijah: Protecting Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis. She is the recipient of the Heinz Award, which is bestowed for significant achievements benefitting the environment. She currently is a scholar-in-residence at Ithaca College in the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences.The Shivvers Memorial Lecture has been presented annually since 1969 in memory of John Shivvers who farmed near Knoxville, Iowa. For more information about this lecture, see here. John Pesek Colloquium on Sustainable AgricultureAbout 360 people attended the 2011 Pesek Colloquium, which was held on October 24. Andrew Revkin was the featured speaker for the colloquium; the title of his lecture was 9 Billion People + 1 Planet = ? An abstract of the presentation can be found here. An audio podcast of the lecture can be downloaded here. Revkin is a senior fellow and lecturer at Pace University’s Academy for Applied Environmental Sciences, the former science columnist at the New York Times, and current author of their Dot Earth blog, a widely read source of information on agriculture, energy, and sustainability issues. His work on the Dot Earth blog recently earned him a National Academies Communications Award, making him the first two-time winner of this prize. The event was sponsored by: Bioeconomy Institute; Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture; College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture; Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture; Agronomy; Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology; Plant Science Institute; Natural Resource Ecology and Management; Practical Farmers of Iowa; Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication; and Committee on Lectures (funded by GSB). STRIPS Project at Neal Smith Wildlife RefugeAn interdisciplinary team of scientists is evaluating the benefits of incorporating small strips of perennial plantings within or near conventional row-cropping systems. The team believes that integrating these strips in row-cropped watersheds will improve water, nutrient, and carbon cycling and dramatically increase the richness and diversity of plants and animals within the landscape. The project is being conducted at the Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge, a conservation and education center located in central Iowa. Included in the team of researchers is Matt Liebman and his graduate student, Sarah Hirsh. A link to information on STRIPS (Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairies) can be found here. An article in the November 2011 edition of the Ohio Farmer highlights some of the benefits of planting prairie grass strips within cropping systems. Some members of the STRIPS Project were interviewed for the article. A PDF of the story can be found here. A podcast, produced by Brian Devore from the Land Stewardship Project in Minnesota, features a discussion of the STRIPS Project with Matt Liebman and Matt Helmers. To listen to the podcast, find the episode titled "Ear to the Ground 103" here. Longer Rotations Could Provide Key to Fighting SDS in SoybeanIowa State agronomist Matt Liebman has been studying various aspects of extending the conventional corn-soybean rotation with small grains and forages for eight seasons. He has documented many benefits, including the need for fewer purchased inputs made from fossil fuels while maintaining high levels of production. Another benefit of longer rotations has surfaced, puzzling him and other researchers at Iowa State. Soybean in three-year rotations with corn, oat and red clover, and in four-year rotations with corn, oat and alfalfa, seemed to escape the worst effects of Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS). The rotation effects were observed in research that Liebman set up eight years ago with a grant from the Leopold Center. See full story here. A grant recently awarded by the Iowa Soybean Association will help support further research into these effects. Leonor Leandro, Assistant Professor in Plant Pathology, will lead a team in studying how production practices may impact the development and severity of SDS. |
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 Henry A. Wallace |
Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture, mminear at iastate dot edu.
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