The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) was awarded a $177,891 Project Grant from the Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (CFDA 10.310) program. The objective of this 3-year research project is to enhance the ability of beneficial bacterial inoculants to compete and persist in various soil environments. The project aims to apply directed selection pressures to microbes in culture in order to...
The Pennsylvania State University received a $180,000 Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (CFDA 10.310 Agriculture and Food Research Initiative) to conduct research on leveraging soil microbial communities to support sustainable agriculture. The three-year project will utilize controlled greenhouse experiments and long-term field trials to determine the specific microbes and microbial functions promoted by different cover...
The Pennsylvania State University, doing business as Penn State, received a $300,000 Project Grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program. This grant aims to elucidate the organisms and microbial-mediated mechanisms associated with controlling the fungal pathogen Verticillium dahlia race 1 in distinct disease-suppressive soils. The project includes three key objectives: 1) identifying the microbial taxa and functions...
The Pennsylvania State University received a $149,791 Project Grant award from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program. The grant will fund research from June 1, 2023 through November 30, 2025 to develop a molecular method for quantifying the composition of functionally diverse cover crop species mixtures belowground. Specifically, the university will refine the method,...
The Pennsylvania State University received a $1,247,490 Project Grant award from the US Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture on September 15, 2022 to complete work by September 14, 2026. The funding supports research into the genetic basis of maize response to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program (AFRI, CFDA No. 10.310). The AFRI program aims to provide funding for fundamental and applied...
The Pennsylvania State University, doing business as Penn State, was awarded a $650,000 Project Grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program. The grant will be used to develop an integrated modeling framework to understand nitrate dynamics and generate spatially and temporally continuous daily nitrate concentration data in agricultural watersheds. This data will be used to evaluate ecosystem health and...
The Pennsylvania State University received a $650,000 Project Grant award from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture to fund research on improving nitrogen and phosphorus nutrient use efficiency in maize crops. The grant was awarded under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program and will support research from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2026. Specifically, the grant will fund analyses of natural, induced, and designed...
Penn State University was awarded a $650,000 Project Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program. The four-year grant will fund research to design more effective cover crop mixtures that provide ecosystem services. Specifically, Penn State researchers will evaluate how seeding rates of three cover crop species interact with environmental conditions to determine...
The Pennsylvania State University was awarded a $233,042 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) to conduct research titled "SITS: COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: SOILS ARE SIGNALING SHIFTS IN AGGREGATE LIFE-CYCLES: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR WATER, CARBON AND CLIMATE FEEDBACKS IN THE ANTHROPOCENE?" from January 15, 2021 through December 31, 2024. The Geosciences program supports basic research in the atmospheric, earth, and ocean sciences to...
The Pennsylvania State University, doing business as Penn State, was awarded a $499,076 Cooperative Agreement under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Soil and Water Conservation program (CFDA 10.902). The award will fund a 3-year project to rely on spatial soil diversity data to inform the role of improved soil structure on plant water availability, using soil pedons, in-situ measurements, and spaceborne data. The project aims to promote...