Project Search
Since its inception in 2004, CIG has funded hundreds of projects, boosting natural resource conservation while helping producers improve the health of their operations for the future. Use this tool to search for CIG projects based on any of the criteria listed below.
CIG projects from 2004-2009 may be missing information in the following categories: Resource Concern (specific), Conservation Practice, Production/Use.
Project and Report Search Toggle
Showing 61 - 70 of 1802 projects
SOUTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY
|
SD
|
2022
No-tillage and cover crop adoption are often very low when full season crops are grown in subhumid frigid soil because planting delays can reduce yields. Integrating no-tillage, with cover crops and enhanced nutrient management can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve the return on investment. Combining these three components shorten the time to spring planting by warming and drying the surface soil. However, because these changes also affect soil microbial activity and N availability, the N management must also be modified. The failure to address the three-components simultaneous can contribute to yield reduction. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to demonstrate the importance combining the three legs of the stool, no-tillage, cover crops, and enhanced N management into a common system. This project will help producers overcome adoption barriers and it will build on an existing farmer network.
NATIVE MICROBIALS, INC.
|
CA, CO, IN, NM, OR, TX, WA
|
2022
Native Microbials Inc. will implement the use of a next generation, rumen-native microbial feed supplement to both improve feed efficiency and reduce enteric methane emissions on 20 commercial dairy farms in the Western United States. The project team will evaluate the environmental, economic, and social impacts of a climate-smart solution that sustainably mitigates enteric methane emissions and provides a novel enteric methane emissions quantification method for dairy cattle at a commercial scale.
LINCOLN UNIVERSITY - Huririsso Solar Grazing
|
MO
|
2022
Emerging agronomic production methods such as the solar corridor cropping system (SCCS) offer solutions to many critical management concerns of farmers including animal feed cost, which represents by far the largest expenses for livestock producers. The cost of production of winter forage for livestock is tremendous with a large commitment to machinery cost and maintenance. Moving to a year-round grazing system for livestock can help alleviate major financial burdens including machinery costs involved in grain, hay and forage harvesting and storage. Growing grain crops like grain sorghum together with a high-protein summer and fall/winter cover crops (“inter-crops” or “floor crops”) using the SCCS method provides opportunities for livestock producers to develop a high energy and protein grazing system during the fall and winter. The SCCS can also significantly increase soil carbon storage via year-round soil cover, which will significantly improve climate resilience of U.S. farmers. However, adoption of these systems by Missouri farmers more broadly, and by historically underserved producers in particular, remains extremely low to none. The project is designed in partnership with collaborator farmers to develop and promote effective SCCS-based winter-grazing systems that can meet the energy and protein needs of multispecies livestock including ewes, cattle, and hogs.
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM
|
National, AS, GU, MP, PR, UM, VI
|
2022
This project is an umbrella project for three separate project developing The Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool (FRST). The aim of FRST is to improve the accuracy and transparency of soil-test based fertilizer recommendations by updating decades-old phosphorus and potassium recommendations and making the data available for use by anyone involved in nutrient management through the FRST tool. Improving soil-test-based recommendations and their interpretation has the potential to significantly reduce nutrient applications by accurately identifying the critical soil test value.
MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY
|
AR, LA, MS, MO
|
2022
By stimulating the adoption of a production system that reuses tailwater in an automated, furrow-irrigated rice production system, Mississippi State University aims to reduce freshwater demand for irrigation and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. This project will support the adoption of tailwater reuse and furrow irrigation on 16 farms. This technique can both reduce water use (by 60%) and methane emissions (by 80%) while maintaining yields in rice fields and minimizing nitrous oxide emissions.
SHAFTER-WASCO IRRIGATION DISTRICT
|
CA
|
2022
The use of subsurface tile (perforated pipe) for groundwater recharge represents a new effort to implement recharge activities on orchard grounds without impacting crop production. The Shafter-Wasco Irrigation District plans to quantify groundwater recharge volumes and develop design criteria for on-farm subsurface recharge systems based on input and data collected from participating producers. The added recharge capacity will help alleviate drought vulnerabilities and help improve groundwater resources.
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
|
FL, GA, MN
|
2022
This project brings together three different production rotations (corn/cotton; corn/peanut and corn/bean) and tests a novel suite of existing technology solutions. The University of Florida will compare variable rate irrigation (VRI) with soil electrical conductivity (EC) mapping and VRI with high resolution remote sensing with uniform rate irrigation to evaluate the environmental and associated economic benefits of adopting the VRI. The project will design a physical model- based predictive control system for adaptive VRI and develop a zone-delineation tool to assess the field variability at a regional scale.
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
|
IA
|
2022
Iowa State University of Science and Technology will demonstrate the advantages of a relay intercropping system to maintain or enhance productivity and profitability while improving soil health and increasing nutrient reductions. A diverse intercropping system will add cropping system resiliency and promote a more diversified and stable community of soil organisms, from microbes to earthworms, while suppressing pathogens and crop pests and benefitting nutrient cycling and soil structure.
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII SYSTEMS
|
HI
|
2022
The University of Hawaii will evaluate the benefits of planting shelterbelts on the perimeters and within rows of crop land as an alternative to cover cropping for soil health conservation. Participating producers will use sheet mulching to supplement plant-available nitrogen from nitrogen fixing trees (shelterbelt planting). The evaluation will be used to develop a tree-mulch plant-available nitrogen calculator to estimate how much nitrogen can be recycled from various multi-purpose, nitrogen-fixing trees.
Iowa Soybean Association
|
IA
|
2022
Research on conservation practices is often focused on single components within a cropping system, such as cover crop versus no-cover crop or time of cover crop termination. To accelerate the adoption of improved practices, farmers could benefit from synthesized holistic and logistically feasible cropping systems. Iowa Soybean Association will promote the adoption of newly synthesized cropping systems that increase profitability, reduce nutrient losses, and improve soil health. Project objectives include characterizing profitability and natural resource outcomes for improved cropping systems and developing new economic insights, natural resource conservation, and improved cropping system stability via crop modeling and statistical analysis.