Mary Parr is a second year Master’s student working with Dr. Julie Grossman’s lab studying soil fertility as part of the larger NRCS/CIG-sponsored project looking at organic grain production using innovative cover crop management techniques. Mary’s Masters research will quantify nitrogen fixation in several winter annual legume cover crops including hairy vetch, crimson clover, berseem clover, subterranean clover, lupine, and Austrian winter pea. She is then tracking the release of that N back into the soil after the cover crop is roll-killed. Her research sites are located throughout the state, including the Tidewater Research Station in Plymouth, the Piedmont Research Station in Salisbury, and she will add a site in Kinston this fall. She hopes that this work will result in information that will help North Carolina’s organic growers choose the best cover crops for the needs of their systems.

Adam Smith, from Wilson, NC, started in Master’s program with Drs. Chris Reberg-Horton and Paul Mueller in 2007. For the past two years at NCSU, Adam has worked to create and test better ways to grow organic soybeans with minimum tillage. He killed rye cover crops using either a roller-crimper or a flail-mower. This created a thick “mat” of rye that suppressed weeds. Soybeans were planted into the rye mulch and additional weed control tactics were tested. Adam applied granulated corn gluten meal as an in-row pre-emergent organic herbicide, clove oil as an in-row post-emergent organic herbicide, or used a high-residue between-row cultivator. Results concluded that rye biomass levels higher than 6000 lbs/ac can provide sufficient weed suppression when rolled and crimped. Clove oil provided some additional control, while corn gluten meal increased weed populations by acting as a fertilizer. 2008 yield data showed organic soybeans on par with conventional check plots at two of the three sites. This year’s sites will be harvested in the fall. Adam currently lives in VA, with intentions to start a PhD position at Virginia Tech in organic weed management.

Aaron Fox (Ph.D. Student in Crop Science):  How do field borders effect weeds? The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service currently offers funding to farmers to turn field borders into quail habitat — could these habitats also help manage agronomic weeds? Small mammals and insects that are known to eat weed seeds may be more abundant in crop-fields that border these habitats. Aaron is looking at four different field border types (1. fallow vegetation, 2. mowed, 3. native prairie forbs/flowers, and 3. a prairie forbs and grasses mix) to find-out if weed seed predators can be integrated into organic weed management strategies. Stay tuned!

George Place has been a part of the organic grains research/extension team since January of 2007 when he began a PhD program in Crop Science. George’s research has focused on alternative weed management in soybean and peanut. His initial projects investigated the effectiveness of various practices in weed control including: pre and post-plant use of the rotary hoe in soybean, use of higher soybean seeding rates, soybean seed size grading, and planting row pattern in peanut. George also worked with the USDA soybean breeding program to investigate differences in advanced soybean lines and popular cultivars in their ability to compete with weeds. George will graduate this December and continue to work with the organic grains program as a research associate, coordinating the efforts of a $1.2 million grant dedicated to crop breeding for organic soybean, corn, wheat, and peanut production.

Carrie Brinton has been working as a research technician with Dr. Chris Reberg-Horton since 2008, and recently began working towards a PhD on the No-till/Roll-kill project. She is evaluating cover crop varieties to determine which work best in NC with the no-till/roll-kill technique in organic production (see article above).