Research and Education Grant Examples

The goals of this project are to reduce or eliminate the use of plastic mulches, improve soil quality, and maintain or improve fertility and weed and disease resistance through the use of biological systems, thus improving profitability. The project manager will work with farmers to test cover crop combinations and cover crop termination techniques and will compare weed suppression and fertility on organic and conventional crop rotations to develop best management practices. This project aims to inform at least 3000 growers about the system and 25 regional farmers will implement the cover crop no-till system on 20 acres, resulting in decreased input costs and erosion-inducing surface area while increasing net income and improving soil quality and allowing equivalent yields relative to their plastic mulch systems. Further, eight extension agents will acquire new information on cover-crop use and termination, which they will incorporate into their training programs and reach another 400 farmers.