ACE

Most corn and soybean fields in the U.S. are planted with herbicide-resistant crop varieties. However, the evolution of superweeds that have developed resistance to common herbicides is jeopardizing current weed management strategies. Agricultural robotics for mechanical weeding is an emerging technology that could potentially provide a solution.

Thaddeus Bergschneider, an undergraduate student in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has been elected as the 2024-2025 National FFA President.

As the world’s native bee populations are declining, crop production requiring pollinators increasingly relies on commercial pollination services. In the U.S., the beekeeping industry is in great demand, and truckloads of bee colonies travel the country to accommodate crop growers.

Conventional food and agricultural production systems employ a linear “take, make, waste” approach: taking natural resources from the Earth to make food and fuel, generating waste that contaminates the soil and water, and emitting harmful pollutants.

The financial planning program in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is growing and thriving. The program, a concentration in the ACE undergraduate major, has doubled in size over the past eight years, and now serves 175 students who are preparing for careers as financial advisors.

As part of a prestigious fellowship sponsored by The Norman Borlaug Institute, Molly Boyd, a 2024 graduate from the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, will spend the next several months working as an agricultural extension agent and teacher in Ghana. 

ACES professors Shadi Atallah and Andrew Margenot are among 15 Illinois faculty selected for the 2024-25 Emerging Research Leaders Academy by the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute. Designed for mid-career faculty to achieve research success, the program provides vital leadership and team science training to pursue large, multi-PI grants, lead campus research initiatives, enhance their own research programs, and u

A program operating within the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that assists farmers with financial management and decision-making welcomes a new CEO this August, while also celebrating a monumental milestone in their history.

Digital technologies on the farm improve efficiency, productivity, and profits, but few farmers are taking full advantage of available tools. According to University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers, communication channels play an important role in farmers’ decision-making process around technology adoption. A new study in the journal Agriculture looks at how traditional media, social media, and interpersonal meetings influence soybean farmers in the U.S.

Researchers analyzed the financial and environmental costs and benefits of four biofuels crops used to produce sustainable aviation fuels in the U.S. They found that each feedstock — corn stover, energy sorghum, miscanthus or switchgrass — performed best in a specific region of the rainfed United States. Their study will help growers and policymakers select the feedstocks most suited to meeting goals like reducing production costs, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and building soil carbon stocks.