URBANA, Ill. – Only a fraction of conventional row crop farmers grow cover crops after harvest, but a new global analysis from the University of Illinois shows the practice can boost soil microbial abundance by 27%.

The result adds to cover crops’ reputation for nitrogen loss reduction, weed suppression, erosion control, and more. Although soil microbial abundance is less easily observed, it is a hugely important metric in estimating soil health.

Komorebi is a Japanese word that describes how light filters through leaves—creating shifting, dappled “sunflecks” that illustrate plants’ ever-changing light environment. Crops harness light energy to fix carbon dioxide into food via photosynthesis. In a special issue of Plant Journal, a team from the University of Illinois reports a new mathematical computer model that is used to understand how much yield is lost as soybean crops grapple with minute-by-minute light fluctuations on cloudy and sunny days. 

URBANA, Ill. – With some reports predicting the precision agriculture market will reach $12.9 billion by 2027, there is an increasing need to develop sophisticated data-analysis solutions that can guide management decisions in real time. A new study from an interdisciplinary research group at University of Illinois offers a promising approach to efficiently and accurately process precision ag data.

URBANA, Ill. – Starting weanling pigs off with the right diet can make all the difference for the health and productivity of the animal. A new University of Illinois study shows amino acids from a new torula yeast product are more digestible by young pigs than amino acids from fish meal.

Champaign, Ill. – The brightest minds in agtech will convene Wednesday, March 4 for the fifth annual AgTech Innovation Summit hosted by the University of Illinois Research Park and presented by Bayer and The Climate Corporation.

URBANA, Ill. ­– Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE) Girish Chowdhary and his research in field robotics continue to make headlines! A Feb. 13 article in the New York Times (NYT) features TerraSentia, a small, autonomous robot resulting from Chowdhary’s research at the University of Illinois.

URBANA, Ill. – Alexander County sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, at the southernmost tip of Illinois. The sparsely populated jurisdiction is perhaps best known for devastating floods resulting from repeated failures of the Len Small levee in 1993, 2011, and 2016. Homes and businesses have been severely damaged, residents stranded, and rich agricultural land irreversibly degraded by sand deposition and erosion.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. —  University of Illinois Provost Andreas C. Cangellaris held the investiture of Stephen P. Long as the Stanley O. Ikenberry Chair Professor of Plant Biology and Crop Sciences on Jan. 27 at the Spurlock Museum. 

URBANA, Ill. – In the battle against herbicide-resistant weeds, farmers are increasingly eager to add non-chemical control methods to their management toolbox. Impact mills, which destroy weed seeds picked up by a combine, have been shown to kill 70-99% of weed seeds in soybeans, wheat, and other small-statured cropping systems.

URBANA, Ill. – The U.S. and China recently agreed to a phase one trade deal that aims to resolve the current trade war between the two countries. But that is just the latest development in longstanding and complicated U.S.-Chinese trade disputes.