The Department of Agronomy and Horticulture Graduate Committee has chosen Manbir Rakkar, an agronomy graduate student specializing in soil and water science, as the recipient of the 2017 Daniel T. Walters Graduate Student Travel Fund. This award provides up to $500 for expenses to present research at a professional meeting.
Rakkar will present at the American Society of Agronomy-Crop Science Society of America-Soil Science Society of America 2017 International Annual Meeting, Oct. 22–25 in Tampa, Florida. She will give two oral presentations, one on greenhouse gas emissions and a second on temporal changes in soil physical properties due to cattle grazing and baling of corn residues. Her poster presentation will be on the development of wind erosion and soil compaction models based on data collected from six sites across Nebraska.
Rakkar is currently working on a project entitled “Cattle Grazing and Baling of Corn Residues across a Precipitation Gradient in Nebraska: Implications on Soil Ecosystem Services.” At six sites across Nebraska she is looking at the impact of cattle grazing and baling on soil ecosystem services under different soil types, agronomic practices and precipitation scenarios. Rakkar is advised by Humberto Blanco, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture.
This award was established to commemorate the life of Daniel T. Walters, agronomy professor, his true global citizenship and his work. Walters had a strong passion for graduate education, supervising more than 20 graduate students in their master’s and doctoral programs. His thirst for knowledge led to an encyclopedic knowledge of crop and soil science. He aimed at understanding and making the world a better place for future generations.
