Mcintire-stennis capacity funds are used to assist states in carrying out a program of state forestry research at state forestry schools and colleges and developing a trained pool of forest scientists…

The Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded Iowa State University of Science and Technology $1,041,590 under the Cooperative Forestry Research program (CFDA 10.202) on October 1, 2025.

Iowa State University conducts five faculty-led forestry research projects at its Ames, Iowa campus through the award period ending September 30, 2027. The projects address reforestation and timber production, watershed management and erosion control, rangeland forage and wildlife habitat, and forest protection against insects and diseases. Specific activities include evaluating conservation structures such as prairie strips, bioreactors, riparian buffers, saturated buffers, and grass patches to improve farmers' and landowners' adoption and siting decisions; satellite-based forest defoliation monitoring to enhance linkage between foliar change and spectral change across forest-insect systems; and assessing urban forest ecosystem resiliency through life-cycle assessment, ecohydrological and energy-use modeling, and social survey tools.

The McIntire-Stennis Capacity Funds program supports state forestry research at eligible state forestry schools and colleges and develops a trained pool of forest scientists capable of conducting needed forestry research. Under program policy, funds are expected to be fully expended in the fiscal year of appropriation, though current policy allows carriage of up to 50 percent of the allocation into the next fiscal year, with those carryover funds fully expended by September 30 of the carryover year.

Mcintire-stennis capacity funds are used to assist states in carrying out a program of state forestry research at state forestry schools and colleges and developing a trained pool of forest scientists capable of conducting needed forestry research. Research falls under one of the following topics: (1) reforestation and management of land for the production of crops of timber and other related products of the forest, (2) management of forest and related watershed lands to improve conditions of water flow and to protect resources against floods and erosion, (3) management of forest and related rangeland for production of forage for domestic livestock and game and improvement of food and habitat for wildlife, (4) management of forest lands for outdoor recreation, (5) protection of forest land and resources against fire, insects, diseases, or other destructive agents, (6) utilization of wood and other forest products, and (7) development of sound policies for the management of forest lands and the harvesting and marketing of forest products. At iowa state university, five faculty-led projects address all of the research objectives above with a particular emphasis on 1, 2, 3, and 5. The five projects and their primary activities are evaluating conservation structures, which aims to assist farmers, farm landowners, and their technical service providers by improving the knowledge basis for adopting and siting onfarm conservation structures including prairie strips, bioreactors, riparian buffers, saturated buffers, and grass patches; satellite-based forest structure, which uses space-based forest defoliation monitoring beyond thematic classification to enhance our ability to link units of continuous foliar change with associated units of spectral change across different forest-insect systems; ecological and social dynamics related to urban ecosystem resiliency, which uses life-cycle assessment, ecohydrological, energy-use models, and social survey tools to assess forest impacts in urban systems; silvicultural approaches for maintaining and enhancing forest ecosystem health and habitat in the upper midwest region, which studies forest, wildlife, climate, and other impacts of silvicultural practices in the midwest; and reference conditions for restoration of midwestern streams and riparian corridors, which explores the recent environmental history of streams and their riparian corridors in iowa and surrounding regions. Deliverables across all projects include publications, conference presentations, theses/dissertations, stakeholder engagements, extension workshops, trainings, webinars, news media, and social media. Our target audiences span the private and public sectors. In the private sector our work benefits forest owners, consulting foresters, farmers and farm land owners, agribusiness, forestry and agricultural stakeholders, technical service providers, C ertified crop advisors, city residents, watershed improvement coordinators, citizen sustainability task force members, public works personnel, stormwater management professionals, and others. In the public sector our work benefits many federal natural resource agencies (US fish and wildlife service, US forest service, USDA farm service agency, USDA natural resource conservation service, national park service,), iowa natural resource agencies (iowa department of natural resources, iowa department of agriculture and land stewardship,), northern institute of applied climate science, adaptive silviculture for climate change network, canadian forest service, other state natural resource agencies (minnesota and wisconsin), and county land departments. Our work also informs the ecoforestry institute society, american forest foundation, the nature conservancy, trees forever, iowa farm bureau federation, iowa natural heritage foundation, iowa wildlife federation, and practical farmers of iowa.