URBANA, Ill. — Corn growers seeking to increase the amount of nitrogen taken up by their crop can adjust many aspects of fertilizer application, but recent studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign show those tweaks don’t do much to improve uptake efficiency from fertilizer. That’s because, the studies show, corn takes up the majority of its nitrogen – about 67% on average – from sources occurring naturally in soil, not from fertilizer.

URBANA, Ill. — Let’s say you’re a corn grower farming on low-fertility soil. How do you go about making that soil healthier and more fertile? Many farmers think if they add plenty of nitrogen fertilizer, that nutrient, along with carbon, will be stored in the soil as organic matter when microbes decompose crop residue. But new research from the University of Illinois suggests those efforts might not work for poor soils. 

A study led by researchers at the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center (ASC) and the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign quantifies the soil organic carbon (SOC) benefits from cover crops in maize-soybean rotations in Midwestern U.S. agroecosystems.

URBANA, Ill. – For tiny salamanders squirming skin-to-soil, big-picture weather patterns may seem as far away as outer space. But for decades, scientists have mostly relied on free-air temperature data at large spatial scales to predict future salamander distributions under climate change. The outlook was dire for the mini ecosystem engineers, suggesting near elimination of habitat in crucial areas.

Now, University of Illinois researchers are tuning into the microclimates that really matter to the imperiled amphibians and forecasting a somewhat more hopeful future.

URBANA, Ill. – Researchers from the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center (ASC) at the University of Illinois can detect soil tillage practices from space, weaving together data from ground images, airborne sensors, and satellites.

URBANA, Ill. – Midwestern agriculture contributes the vast majority of nitrogen in the Gulf of Mexico, causing an oxygen-starved hypoxic zone and challenging coastal economies. State and federal policies have tried for decades to provide solutions and incentives, but the hypoxic zone keeps coming back. A recent study from the University of Illinois offers a new way to understand Midwestern nitrogen dynamics and forecasts future nitrogen loads under various management scenarios across the region. 

URBANA, Ill. – It was the height of summer 2022 when the calls started coming in. Scores of dead deer suddenly littered rural properties and park preserves, alarming the public and inconveniencing landowners. According to officials at the Urbana Park District, it was Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD), a midge-borne viral illness that pops up in white-tailed deer populations around the state every few years.

URBANA, Ill. – Just how hard should natural resource managers fight invasive species after they establish? A new University of Illinois study suggests some invaders – even highly successful ones – can die off naturally, leaving native communities to rebound with minimal management effort. 

URBANA, Ill. – For anglers, landing a muskellunge, or muskie, is a big deal. The “fish of 10,000 casts” is notoriously elusive, making the massive fish an even bigger prize when one finally strikes a lure.

In a new study, University of Illinois researchers got into the minds of muskies to learn what personality traits make the fish more likely to strike. In the process, they learned valuable lessons that could help conserve the important aquatic predators.