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Agriculture

Illinois study: Novel AI methodology improves gully erosion prediction and interpretation

Gully erosion is the most severe form of soil erosion, and it can seriously impact agricultural fields, contributing to sediment loss and nutrient runoff into waterways. Gullies can be triggered suddenly by a single heavy rainfall event, creating deep channels that are difficult to rehabilitate even with heavy machinery. Accurately predicting where gully erosion is likely to occur allows agricultural producers and land managers to target their conservation efforts more effectively.

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Breaking the phenotype bottleneck with autonomous robots

Determining, analyzing, or predicting how crops will grow in the field takes time and labor. The interactions between genetics, environment and agricultural practices are challenging to measure. The newly published results of a five-year study on maize (or corn) demonstrate that autonomous ground robots can accurately and reliably capture this information.

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Illinois leads most rigorous agricultural greenhouse gas emissions study to date

Farmers apply nitrogen fertilizers to crops to boost yields, feeding more people and livestock. But when there’s more fertilizer than the crop can take up, some of the excess can be converted into gaseous forms, including nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that traps nearly 300 times as much heat in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. About 70% of human-caused nitrous oxide comes from agricultural soils, so it’s vital to find ways to curb those emissions.

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What effect will tariffs have on consumers, farmers?

Jonathan W. Coppess, associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, spoke with Illinois News Bureau business and law editor Phil Ciciora about the potential effects of tariffs.

What are tariffs likely to mean to the average U.S. household, and when will consumers start to notice the effects?

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Illinois study: Extreme heat impacts dairy production, small farms most vulnerable

Livestock agriculture is bearing the cost of extreme weather events. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign explores how heat stress affects U.S. dairy production, finding that high heat and humidity lead to a 1% decline in annual milk yield.

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‘Sustainable intensification’ on the farm reduces soil nitrate losses, maintains crop yields

A nine-year study comparing a typical two-year corn and soybean rotation with a more intensive three-year rotation involving corn, cereal rye, soybean and winter wheat found that the three-year system can dramatically reduce nitrogen — an important crop nutrient — in farm runoff without compromising yield.

The new findings are detailed in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science.

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In the weeds: Amaranth genomes reveal secrets of success

Weeds like Palmer amaranth make farming harder and less profitable, and available herbicides are becoming less effective. For scientists to find solutions, they first need to know their enemy.

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