Agriculture

Developing a thriving soybean market in Africa doesn’t just represent a new crop in the rotation for smallholder farmers — it builds an entire ecosystem of seed companies, processors, and trade partners ready to enter the global soybean market. The Soybean Innovation Laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has been working toward this reality for more than a decade. 

Agricultural producers and manufacturers often need information about crop attributes, from nutrient content to chemical composition, to make management decisions. In recent years, multispectral imaging has emerged as a useful tool for product analysis, but the required equipment is expensive. Standard RGB cameras are much more affordable, but their images show only visible attributes.

 The U.S. has traditionally been an agricultural powerhouse with a healthy trade surplus. But global dynamics are changing due to a confluence of political and economic factors. U.S. agricultural imports now exceed exports, and the trade deficit is projected to worsen in the coming years.

In a decisive new study, crop scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and USDA’s Agricultural Research Service show that soybeans are doubly damaged by drought and ozone pollution, both of which are increasing across the globe due to climate change.  

Tile drainage is a common practice used in agricultural fields to remove excess water, but it also transports harmful nutrients into water bodies, contributing to algal blooms that deprive aquatic life of oxygen. Woodchip bioreactors are an efficient way to reduce nitrogen pollution by treating the water as it exits the field. However, these denitrifying bioreactors may leach phosphorus from the woodchips into the environment.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumnus Eric Hodel didn’t begin his career expecting to lead one of the nation’s largest faith-based food banks. But the journey from his childhood on a Central Illinois farm to his current role as CEO of Midwest Food Bank makes one thing clear: Agriculture and serving his community have always been central to his story.  

Another round of excessive heat is on the way through much of the United States next week, with heat indices predicted to reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit or more in many locations. 

Every time Fred Below and Connor Sible meet with Illinois farmers, they get the same question. “What’s the story with these biologicals? Do they work?” 

When most growers plant corn, they expect perfect, uniform rows and plump and pearly yellow kernels lining the cob. But a group of USDA Agricultural Research Service scientists intentionally plant the misfits — some gnarled and speckled, others sprouting tassels where ears should be — to perpetuate the wide array of genetic variation in the Midwest’s most economically important crop. 

Drones can now detect subtle soybean canopy damage from dicamba at one ten-thousandth of the herbicide’s label rate — simulating vapor drift — eight days after application. This advancement in remote sensing from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign provides a science-based tool to accurately detect and report crop damage at the field scale, reducing human error and bias.