Annual/Termination Reports:

[12/03/2010] [11/30/2011] [12/03/2013]

Report Information

Participants

Eric Young (SAAESD Administrative Advisor), Patrick Carr (Chair, North Dakota State University), Cindy Cambardella (USDA-ARS), Craig Cogger (Washington State University), Neal Eash (University of Tennessee), Bill Evans (Mississippi State University), Ann Marie Fortuna (Washington State University), Joseph Heckman (Rutgers University), Jennifer Reeve (Utah State University), Jane Sooby (Organic Farming Research Foundation), Elizabeth Sarno (University of Nebraska), and Deborah Stinner (Ohio State University).

Brief Summary of Minutes

The inaugural meeting of SCC 83, which was held just prior to the Tri-Society (Agronomy, Crops, and Soils) International Meeting at Long Beach, California, occurred on 31 October.

The meeting began at 9 AM with introductions by attendees. Eric Young discussed briefly the different NIMSS project types with a focus on coordinating committees vs. research projects, since a charge by the chair was for the group to decide whether to continue functioning as a coordinating committee or to evolve into a multistate research project group. There was strong agreement by attendees that SCC 83 should continue functioning as a coordinating committee because of the broadness in scope and disciplines reflected in committee objectives; several attendees foresaw multistate research projects forming out of the networking and interaction between members and shared mutual interests of smaller groups within the committee. Members saw SCC 83 as the means to ensure coordination of various research projects and activities among committee members.

The location and time of the 2011 meeting of SCC 83 was discussed. Committee members agreed that there are advantages to holding the annual meeting in conjunction with another meeting at the same location  such as the Agronomy/Crops/Soils Tri-Society meeting, the American Society of Horticultural Science (ASHS) annual meeting, the All Things Organic annual meeting, or several other meeting choices. Since there was interest expressed by horticultural researchers to participate in SCC 83, but who do not attend the Tri-Society meeting, it was agreed to coordinate the 2011 SCC 83 meeting with the 2011 ASHS annual meeting. The 2011 ASHS meeting is during 25-28 September in Hawaii; the SCC 83 meeting will take place either immediately before or immediately after the ASHS annual meeting. Efforts will be made to arrange for remote electronic attendance by SCC 83 members at the annual meeting who will not be able to attend in person by Pat Carr and Bill Evans, who will work together in arranging the 2011 SCC 83 annual meeting. There was some discussion about the 2013 meeting being held in conjunction with the Tri-Society meeting in Cleveland, as well as other group meetings not typically attended by agricultural scientists (e.g., meetings attended by food quality scientists). Time and place for the 2012 annual meeting will be decided at the 2011 annual meeting.

Discussion of future meetings led to discussion of a planning grant proposal so that SCC 83 members with restricted travel funds, as well as those who might not otherwise interact directly with committee members initially, could attend. Jennifer Reeve indicated a willingness to take the lead at developing a planning grant proposal in 2012. Deb Stinner agreed to assist Jennifer in this effort. Other committee members are expected to help, as needed.

Discussion of chair, vice-chair, and secretary positions occurred. Pat Carr agreed to serve out his 1-yr term as chair in 2011; Bill Evans will serve as vice-chair in 2011 and as chair in 2012. Jennifer Reeves will serve as secretary in 2011, with Deb Stinner agreeing to serve as alternate secretary if Jennifer is unable to attend the annual meeting in person. A new vice chair and secretary will be elected at the 2011 annual meeting among those in attendance.

It was agreed that the title of the group needed to be modified to better reflect the objectives of SCC 83 and the inclusiveness of the committee. The new title is: Quantifying the Linkages Among Soil Health, Organic Farming, and Food.

Non-prioritized short-term goals for the committee were established and include: Submission by each committee member of a non-technical description of their active research program in organic farming, and collaborative opportunities tht exist; establishment of a non-public site within eOrganic where SCC 83 members can communicate and interact electronically; develop visuals to be used in conjunction with a booth that SCC 83 members will maintain at the Trade Show during the 2011 ASHS annual meeting, and; oral or paper presentation at the 2011 ASHS providing exposure of SCC 83 activities and soliciting participation by non committee members.

Accomplishments

Publications

Impact Statements

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Report Information

Participants

Erin
Jennifer Reeve  Utah State University
Kathleen Delate  Iowa State University

Pat Carr  North Dakota State University

Bill Evans  Mississippi State University

Craig Cogger -

Carl Motsenbocker - LSU Ag Center

Charles Shapiro -

Brief Summary of Minutes

Current Activities:

Erin
-4th year IOP no till organic rotation with crimped rye and soybean and vetch/corn combo
-Collaboration with Midwestern BioAg in Wisc. Trying to improve dialog and collegiality with UW on micronutrient and humics relations.

Jennifer Reeve USU Soil Quality
-organic peaches 6 trts plus control conventional
-testing humics in onions, including thrips responses
-compost use in high tunnels combining with legume cover crops to balance N and P
-compost carryover in low OM veg systems

Kathleen Delate
-Integ. Org. Prog. (IOP) project on no till vs. tilling cover crops under

Pat Carr
-SC0083 outputs  book chapter coming out as a lit review
-Renewable Ag and Sustainable Systems will have an article on organics and soil health

Bill Evans
-summer cover crops, cover crops in high tunnels, organic amendment and fertilizer studies

Craig Cogger
Pasturing sheep on various cover crop and pasture systems


Carl Motsenbocker
SSARE Summer Cover Crop Study

Charles Shapiro
Check presentation




Future Work

Carl mentioned food safety issues, GAPS, soil contamination, small farms and a possible exemption from some regs.
Pat  Need a food quality person active in the committee.
Linking organic farming, soils, food safety/quality
Michigan State, Nebraska food safely Vicky Schlegal
Planning grant proposal idea brought un in 2011 meeting.

Craig mentioned working with Chen a bit.
WSU Preston Andrews and others working on soil issues
- Food chemist too
- Karen Killinger Food Sci/Food Safety of meat and veg.
Jennifer mentioned Allison Mitchell at UCDavis
Pat has 27 1.5 ha plots with no project prepped for grazing beef cattle.
Wants collaborators on integrating animals into plant ag research
Also 30 60X100 plots in a long term organic tillage systems with sheep (w/ Montana State) as weed control in the perennial pastures.
Dry land mostly
NDSU does not have people interested in organic food safety issues.
Jennifer planning to put in for a climate change cropping systems grant to look at legumes in animal systems; birdsfoot trefoil. We CSU, UWy. UND could be a partner.

Jennifer and Pat discussing an organic wheat/animal rotation study

Nebraska - Fine tuning the crimper use. No till organics needed.
Assessment of ecosystem services to

N Tie up with rye residue

Compost applications in cover crop systems

Would it be useful to have a list of people with relevant expertise?

Mary described a high tunnel organic system that might have some good protocols to review for this group: Cary Rivard now at KSU; Suzanne OConnell NCSt.

Carl talked of grower using Haygrove high tunnels as rain out shelters then strip till and fert in cover crops.

UWash Doug Collins CO2 Evolultion

African vegetable cropping systems
Soil improvement
Pedro
Millenium Development Project
Multipronged approach
Sig Snapp at MSU
Uganda Kathleen Delate


P loading in organic systems


NEED TO GET FOOD SCIENTISTS TO THE MEETINGS AND INVOLVED IN THE COMMITTEE
Lipid scientists at USU finding that trefoil improves milk quality
Walter Goldstein breeding corn for higher methyonene

Mary talked about understanding and manipulating forage quality to alter food quality

2012 Meeting Plans
ASA Cincinnati?
How to get food sci and nutrition there? Craig
Symposium on this topic plus this meeting
Proposal due Dec. 2011 for 2012
There will be a soil biology symposium
Invite key outsiders
Medical Conferences
Food Science Conferences
Nutrition
All Things Organic/OTA Conference
Pulll through marketing to food sci from food marketers
Georgia Organics
ISHS Organic Fruit WG meeting in Washington (w/IFOAM)
New England Organic Conf.
Med schools
Planning grants
MOSES in LaCross WI

Meet or have e-conference

Have quarterly Chats?

FB Group?

ASA Oct. 21-25, 2012 Cincinnati
Planning Grant
Invite speaker
Wendell Berry inspirational speaker
Alison Mitchell UC Davis
Penny Perkins-Veazie  NCState
Groups S-3, S-4, S-8, Organic CoP could be part of it
Preston Andrews
(OSU research on food science and human nutrition)
Need to attend the ASA Organic Management Systems Community
meeting to present to the meeting. Cindy is running the community
meeting in San Antonio
Proposal due Dec. 15 for a symposium
Propose symposium for later in the meeting and the group meeting on the 26th.

Elections
Decided that no Secretary would be elected so Bill and Jennifer go as Chair and Chair Elect as scheduled.

2012 Outputs and Goals
Symposium and meeting at ASA  Publications, too!
Complete Application for grant for symposium (ASA and SSSA and CSSA)
Jennifer Agronomy OMSC and S-3; S-4 and S-8 Dr. Shapiro; CSSA? C-3(Bill)
Increase involvement of food science and nutrition in the committee - ALL
Document one or more collaborative proposal(s) is/are submitted by committee members
Submit the annual NIMSS report on time Due Dec. 23, 2011. Jennifer and Bill
Present poster at ASHS 2011 and ASA 2012  Pat and Bill
Print poster as handout for ASHS  Bill

Accomplishments

Publications

Impact Statements

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Report Information

Participants

Present: Jennifer Reeve (Utah State), Pat Carr (North Dakota State), Eric Young (Administrative Advisor and Executive Director, Southern Association of Agricultural Experiment Station Directors)), Kathleen Delate (Iowa State), Craig Cogger (Washington State), Cindy Cambardella (USDA-ARS, Ames, Iowa), Urszula Norton (Univ. Wyoming), Jay Norton (Univ. Wyoming), Charles Shapiro (Univ. Nebraska), Larry Phelan (Ohio State), Krista Jacobsen (University of Kentucky), Joseph Heckman (Rutgars).

Brief Summary of Minutes

Morning session (8:30  11:20)

Jennifer Reeve introduced the meeting and the agenda.

Introductions

Each participant introduced themselves, a brief overview of their work, a summary of activities completed relative to SCC 083, and announcements.

Announcements

Pat Carr  Potential Food Collaborations - Pat recently spoke with representatives from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND, formerly American Dietetic Association) in an effort to solicit expertise on the food aspects of SCC 083. AND is comprised of a number of professional practice groups. The Hunger and Environmental Nutrition practice group might be a good fit for collaboration. Pat will follow up accordingly, perhaps inviting to a virtual meeting (see notes below).

Eric Young  Update on status of the Farm Bill  The conference committee has finally started meeting, and according to Erics contacts, the lobbyists feel like it will probably pass this calendar year, although progress is still held up by SNAP. However, lawmakers are looking for way to show they can compromise, so maybe there is hope for passage. Based on current versions of Farm bill and political will demonstrated to date, it is likely funding for bioenergy efforts will drop, and Hatch, Smith-Lever, AFRI, and ARS appear to be poised for increases in funding. Organic Ag Mandatory Programs have funding in both the Senate and House versions of the legislation (Senate version: 80 million; House version: 100 million). It is pretty likely the OREI will remain in the 2013 Farm Bill, likely funded at 16-20 million/year. If the Farm Bill passes, funds would come available FY 2015 (October 1, 2014), which means NIFA could release an OREI call in the early months of 2014 (note: this is a best case scenario).

Discussion Themes

Participation

The group discussed various meeting options, including different society annual meetings, etc. but concluded that attendance at annual meetings was best at ASA- SSSA- CSSA meetings for core participants, although this venue might limit collaborations. Eric noted that consistency in meeting schedule tends to increase participation and stabilize attendance. The group decided to pilot a model of 2 meetings per year: 1 physical meeting at the Tri-Societies Conference, and 1 virtual meeting approximately 6 months later. Stay tuned for details on technology and agenda.

Review paper

Jennifer has spearheaded the creation of a review article covering the scope of this groups work. The manuscript is currently slated for publication in the journal Sustainability. Jennifer is guest editor of a special issue on organic agriculture. The benefits of this venue are that it is open access, potential drawback is that the journal is indexed (web of science, SCIE and SSCI) but is not ranked yet in terms of journal citation reports. The current deadline is January 15, 2014 for submission. Other venues discussed include Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, Critical Reviews in Plant Science, or the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation if the deadline is not reached. Current goal is to aim for January 15 and Sustainability as the venue.

Notes on the article: The focus is the question of How does sustainable management influence quality? Using organic plant production systems as the model. Jennifer has a working draft that has been circulated to the group at the time of this writing. She has enlisted the help of Laurie Hoagland to aid in the soil microbiology pieces and also Amaya Atucha to help with the treefruit section.

The following areas are still in need of expansion/writing leadership:

Role of environmental, cultivar, training system  Amaya Atachua and Xin Zhao

Role of fertilizers on produce quality - Amaya Atacha and Xin Zhao and or Krista Jacobsen?

Role of herbivory on produce quality  Larry Phelan

Role of breeding on produce quality  Don Davis

Food and human health  unwritten  Any ideas who could contribute? Do we want this section?

Linking everything together and identifying major holes  Larry Phelan, Jennifer Reeve others ?

If you have an idea of what some of the major gaps in knowledge are, please e-mail your list to Jennifer.

Jennifer will send the article to the entire SCC 083 group to enlist help filling gaps and the final writing push. Jennifer needs input before Christmas to meet the January 15 deadline (if not before).

Eric said to make sure to pull out and send the gaps to the National Program Leaders in the Organic Programs. Ideally, these gaps might show up in future program priorities.

Review paper - future directions

Given the discussion at the 2012 annual meeting and subsequent discussion in the 2013 meeting, this article could be an initial framing type paper that would provide the foundation for future book authored by SCC 083 project members. This would be a point of discussion for future meetings, pending successful publication of the article and sufficient interest from group members (and a publisher).

Afternoon session (1:30-2:05)  Issues in Organic Systems Discussion
Given the unique opportunity to discuss salient issues in organic farming systems, the group decided to spend + 45 minutes discussing issues in organic farming systems. That brief discussion/idea exchange is summarized below:

Herbicide contamination issues

- Glyphosate impacts in organic farming  Joseph cited the potential issues with widespread use of glyphosate on soil fertility (glyphosate as a chelator), and potential effects on soil microbial activity and roots as an opportunity for collaboration and potential investigation on the effects of glyphosate on food quality (due to micronutrient deficiencies). Joseph propose study of RR soy and organic.

- Update on herbicide issues in compost  Craig provided an update on chlorpyralid contamination and aminopyralid contamination in yard debris compost and the effects on urban gardeners and organic farmers in the Pacific Northwest (where there has been a hotbed of activity on this issue). This is a recurring issues, and recently WSU-Pullman experienced herbicide contamination in their community gardens. Craig and colleagues as WSU did some bioassay work, which led to the ban of chlorpyralid and aminopyralid in their area.

Soil fertility discussion

- There was significant discussion in the group throughout the day on issues of soil fertility in organic farming systems, especially as related to over application of composts and the need for integrated nutrient management plans for organic farms. There was discussion as to whether there are extension publications out in existence that can provide these resources, and whether there is a potential role for this group to play in this conversation. This is an item for future discussion, with potential areas of work for this group
including:

o Soil test recommendations and their fit for organic farming systems

o Overall soil fertility methodologies that fit organic systems across a range of climates, and how to present holistic fertility management systems to organic farmers.

Afternoon session (2:05  3:00)  What is the future of this group? Discussion
With increased participation this year and lively discussion at the annual meeting, the consensus was:

- Continue SCC 083

- Use the paper as an opportunity to generate output

- Move forward with transitioning SCC 083 to an S-multistate project (this is a change from a multistate coordinating committee focused on networking to a multistate research project)

Future directions

- Increased role of food scientists and partnerships to expand on the food quality component of SCC 083. Ideas welcome!

- Transitioning to an S- project

o SCC 083 will expire in September 2015. Given the lively discussion about the results from various members research projects, and how they are similar or differ from other systems and climates, the participants felt there was sufficient interest to move forward with transitioning to a multistate research project.
o The future S-project would be focused on examining the linkages described in SCC 083 across farming systems and climates, utilizing study systems participants already have in place.

o Eric noted that having a common protocol used in all systems, and/or an equipment/analytical dependency common to all systems is a standard approach to S-projects.

o Future steps

§ An inventory of all participants have ongoing systems research projects in (see table below).

§ Assess resources present in inventory and decide on S-project focus. Foci discussed included Soil management for food quality and measuring and managing soil nutrient levels in organic production.
Future meetings and roles

- Election results  Jennifer will continue another year as coordinator, Krista will be secretary for next year.

- Virtual Meeting: early March 2014 (pre-spring break)

- Next physical meeting: ASA Long Beach on Thursday/Friday prior to conference (spend all meeting talking about new proposal). Perhaps at a college in Long Beach to get a hard internet connection for virtual participants.

- Goals before next meeting

o Review article submitted

o Draft language for future S-proposal? (this could be covered in 2014-2015)

o Electronic discussion of what the next steps are, pending feedback from meeting notes and review article progress.

Accomplishments

Publications

Impact Statements

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