2021 Seminar Series

January 29, 2021

Management of Herbicide-resistant Palmer Amaranth in Minor and Specialty Crops Within the High Plains

NEVIN LAWRENCE
Assistant Professor and Weed Management Specialist, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska–Lincoln 

Herbicide-resistant Palmer amaranth is a recent arrival to the Panhandle of Nebraska and surrounding regions, and many of the crops grown within the region have limited herbicide options. Lawrence will review the previous five years of research and extension efforts he has undertaken to better understand Palmer amaranth, and to provide stakeholders with options to manage a difficult but increasingly common weed species.

February 5, 2021

Oil Palm Production and Conservation of Natural Resources: Can We Get It All?

PATRICIO GRASSINI
Associate Professor and Cropping Systems Specialist, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
While the environmental impact associated with oil palm expansion in Indonesia has received lot of attention, there is little dialogue on a solution agenda that could help the country to reconcile economic and environmental goals. This seminar presents results from a UNL project that aims to find that balance via intensification, that is, by increasing productivity on existing cropland.

February 12, 2021

Soil Health — How Management is Affecting the Pulse of Soil

ALAN FRANZLUEBBERS
USDA-ARS, Raleigh, North Carolina

Soil is alive, and how we manage it reveals to us our ecological influence. We can be dominating or nurturing and soil will let us know what it can tolerate from us. This presentation will focus on soil ecology and management issues relevant for achieving more sustainable agricultural systems.

February 19, 2021

Coexisting with Fire in Rangelands

VICTORIA M. DONOVAN
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Large wildfires have surged in recent years in the Great Plains. While fire is a fundamental rangeland ecosystem process, it can also pose a risk to human life and infrastructure. How can we coexist with fire? Donovan will present recent research on changing wildfire patterns and suggest directions for future management.

February 19, 2021

People, Fire and Global Biome Divergence in the 21st Century

RHEINHARDT SCHOLTZ
Affiliate, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
In the 21st century, we find ourselves faced with uncertainty in managing our terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, our planet faces major anthropogenic threats to the functioning of many ecosystems. This talk covers how society and the age of information can better conserve our landscapes. 

February 26, 2021

Aerial Application in the United States: Best Practices and Future Directions

BRADLEY FRITZ
Agricultural Engineer and Research Leader, Aerial Application Technology Research Unit, USDA-ARS, College Station, Texas
Aerial application accounts for a significant portion of all the crop protection and production products applied in the United States. Reaching nearly all commercial crops and the majority of forestry acres, the continued improvement and use of technologies and management practices are critical to ongoing industry sustainability, crop yield and environment protection. Fritz will discuss some of the key issues, management practices, decision support technologies and directions for future growth for aerial application in the United States.

March 5, 2021

Teaching Landscape Systems

DAN UDEN
Assistant Professor, School of Natural Resources, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, Center for Resilience in Agricultural Working Landscapes, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Landscape systems surround us, are tightly linked to human wellbeing, and are under increasing pressure, which makes understanding their abilities to function in the face of stressors and change essential. This seminar will overview continuing efforts to develop coursework for landscape system assessment across UNL departments.

March 12, 2021

The Summing Up: One Person’s Life with Small Grains

P. STEPHEN BAENZIGER
Professor, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and Nebraska Wheat Growers Presidential Chair
After receiving his Ph.D. in 1975, P. Stephen Baenziger worked all of his career as a small grain breeder (wheat and barley and later adding triticale). Baenziger will offer his reflections on working at the USDA-ARS, Monsanto, and for the last 34 years at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and what it means to be a plant breeder.

March 26, 2021

How Can Transferable Biology and Breeding Contribute to Improving Food Systems and Climate Change?

EDWARD BUCKLER
Professor, USDA-ARS at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

The demands of food production, fuels, nutrition, and climate change are going to require that thousands of species undergo genomic selection over the next two decades. Buckler uses machine learning and statistical models of chromatin structure, regulatory grammar, cis-expression, protein stability, and deleterious mutations to improve transferable genome wide predictions.

April 9, 2021

Research @ Scale: Developing Crop Science Products through Innovative Science & Modern Data Architecture

RUTH WAGNER
Head of Data Science & Analytics at Bayer Crop Science, St. Louis, Missouri

Bayer is a life science company and a global leader in health care and nutrition whose products support efforts to overcome the major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population. As the industry leader, Bayer Crop Science has a role in helping the world meet the growing challenges and demand for agricultural. In this talk, Drs. Ruth Wagner, Linda Rymarquis and Ian Davis will share how scientific innovations like gene editing and data infrastructure are shaping our Plant Biotechnology R&D pipeline.

April 16, 2021

Management of Herbicide-Resistant Weeds: Challenges and Opportunities

RODRIGO WERLE
Assistant Professor and Extension Cropping Systems Weed Scientist, Department of Agronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Herbicide-resistant weeds represent a major threat to sustainability and profitability of row crop production systems in the U.S. Midwest and beyond. Werle will discuss ongoing research efforts in Wisconsin to provide growers and decision influencers with research-based information to be more effective and sustainable integrated weed management systems.

April 23, 2021

From Plant Proteins and Metabolites to Protein Networks and Metabolic Pathways

SOPHIE ALVAREZ
Research Associate Professor, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, Director of the Proteomics and Metabolomics Facility, Nebraska Center for Biotechnology, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Proteomics and metabolomics are two of the “omics” technologies that are still underrepresented in plant biology despite their well-recognized value to crop science. With the help of examples, this talk will show how using these approaches contribute to advancing our understanding of plant coping strategies and defense mechanisms when they are under stress.

April 30, 2021

Expanding the Breeding Toolbox to Develop Soybean Cultivars

ASHEESH SINGH
Professor, Agronomy, Bayer Chair in Soybean Breeding, Associate Chair for Discovery and Engagement, Director of Graduate Education (Plant Breeding), R.F. Baker Center for Plant Breeding, Plant Sciences Institute, Iowa State University, Ames

The soybean breeding program at Iowa State University, through an interdisciplinary effort, is developing strategies and building tools to improve the breeding pipeline. This presentation will explore few emerging technologies and data analytics developed or utilized in our program to study plant traits, and describe their application in phenotyping and cultivar development.

September 10, 2021

BIOCHAR – What Do We Really Know About Its Benefits?

HUMBERTO BLANCO
Professor of Soil Management and Applied Soil Physics, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Can biochar restore the declining soil ecosystem services including food security, water conservation, water quality, climate regulation, and others? Can biochar be a strategy to address current agricultural and environmental concerns in the region? This presentation will address the questions above and discuss the challenges and opportunities of biochar use in agricultural systems.

September 17, 2021

Precision Conservation: Optimizing Agricultural Production and Natural Resource Conservation

ANDREW LITTLE
Assistant Professor of Landscape and Habitat Management, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Humans are facing global challenges to meet food production, provide environmental protection, adapt to climate change, and address economic risk for farmers in the 21st century. Little will discuss new precision technologies and strategic conservation planning frameworks to optimize agricultural production, leading to increased profits while simultaneously reducing negative environmental impacts.

September 24, 2021

Challenges of Developing a Resilient Cropping System in a Semi-Arid Environment

CODY CREECH
Associate Professor and Dryland Cropping Systems Specialist, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Agricultural crop production in water limited environments has extreme variability from year to year. The lack of precipitation requires crop producers to use increasingly complex and novel strategies to mitigate losses and become more resilient in the face of an ever changing climate.

October 1, 2021

Increasing Pasture Productivity and Quality to Support Grazing Livestock

JOHN GURETSKY
Associate Professor of Grassland Systems Ecology, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

This seminar will describe the structure and function of cool-season grass pastures in the Midwest including those dominated by perennials and seeded with annuals. Strategies and knowledge gaps to enhancing pasture productivity and quality through cultivar introductions, interseeding, and planting of simple to complex mixtures will be emphasized.

October 8, 2021

Greenhouse Gas Fluxes Under Different Agricultural Practices — Is Climate-smart Agriculture Possible?

ERI SAIKAWA
Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, Emory University, Atlanta

Although agriculture contributes substantially to climate change, there is little discussion on how to mitigate the three major greenhouse gases and ammonia simultaneously from agricultural soils. This seminar presents findings from a project that aims to tackle this question in a corn field, while keeping the yield intact.

October 15, 2021

New Insight in the Mode of Action of Glufosinate

FRANCK DAYAN
Professor of Weed Science, Department of Agricultural Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins

The effect of glufosinate on glutamine synthetase and ammonia accumulation have been known for many years. However, our understanding of the contact action of this herbicide could not be accounted for by these effects. Our detailed investigation elucidated the biochemical mechanism leading to the rapid ROS-driven burn-down effect of glufosinate. During this research, we stumbled upon a physiological connection between glufosinate and PPO inhibitors that led to new synergistic herbicide mixtures.

October 22, 2021

Using Cover Crops for Weed Suppression Across Kansas

ANITA DILLE
Professor of Weed Ecology and Assistant Head for Teaching, Department of Agronomy, Kansas State University, Manhattan

Using cover crops as a component of weed management continues to be adopted despite diverse growing environments and cropping systems from east to west across Kansas. Research outcomes focused on managing cover crops for weed suppression will be presented. 

October 29, 2021

Soil Mining in Cropping Systems in Argentina

JUAN PABLO MONZON
Research Assistant Professor, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

The growing global demand for food, a competitive agricultural sector, and an intermediate yield gap level put Argentina in an excellent position to intensify crop production for the next 10 years. Higher yields have a higher nutrient requirement, and it is unclear whether current nutrient use in Argentina is enough to close the yield gap in a sustainable way.

November 5, 2021 

How to Model GxE and Use It For Plant Breeding: Examples From Our Researches

HIROYOSHI IWATA
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo 

Modeling genotype-environment interactions (GxE) and the use of GxE for genetic improvement have long been an important topic in breeding. We have been working on modeling GxE in rice and soybean. We are developing models to utilize high-throughput phenotyping data and historical breeding data. In this talk, I will introduce our modeling approaches and present future perspectives on the potential use of GxE for genetic improvement. 

November 12, 2021 

Searching for Short, Bald and Golden: The Modern Pursuit of Genes Underlying Soybean Traits

BOB STUPAR
Professor of Legume Molecular Genetics, Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul 

The emergence of soybean genome sequence resources and new biotechnology and bioinformatic methodologies is accelerating the cloning and characterization of DNA polymorphisms that cause phenotypic variation. This presentation will focus on the ongoing pursuit of genes underlying important soybean phenotypes, including plant architecture and abiotic stress traits.

November 19, 2021

The Wheat We Grow Versus the Wheat We Could Grow: Quantifying and Assessing Causes of Wheat Yield Gaps in the U.S.

ROMULO LOLLATO
Associate Professor of Wheat and Forages Production, Department of Agronomy, Kansas State University, Manhattan 

This presentation will summarize years of research quantifying and assessing causes of yield gaps in wheat using Kansas, the largest US winter wheat producer, as a case-study. Data presented will range from on-farm assessments of management and weather determinants of wheat yield, to detailed field experiments establishing the physiological determinants of yield and potential avenues to sustainably improve wheat production though optimization of genotype by management by environment interactions.

December 3, 2021

Using Precipitation Insurance to Manage Forage Production Risk in Nebraska: Insights From Extension Programming

JAY PARSONS
Professor and Farm and Ranch Management Extension Specialist, Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nebraska–Lincoln 

Pasture, Rangeland, Forage insurance and the Annual Forage Insurance Program are indexed precipitation insurance products available to Nebraska livestock producers. This presentation will highlight experiences working with Nebraska producers over the last seven years to better understand and use these products effectively. Parsons will also share several examples of performance and historical usage in several regions of the state.

December 10, 2021 

Modeling Shallow Water Tables and Impacts on Productivity and Sustainability

SOTIRIOS ARCHONTOULIS
Associate Professor of Integrated Cropping Systems, Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University, Ames 

Soil moisture affects everything in the soil-plant system. Precipitation, irrigation, and shallow water tables have a strong influence on soil moisture, but the effect of water table has been overlooked despite its importance on crop yields and yield stability from year to year. Archontoulis will present new results on modeling shallow water tables across the U.S. Corn Belt and impacts on productivity and sustainability.