Students assessing beneficial insect activity in their cover crop mixtures at Campus Area Farms. From right to left: Margaux Hein, Martin Ganev, and other students in the class PLSCI 4125.
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Cover Crop Challenge lets students compete and grow
By Krisy Gashler
How better to learn with classmates than to soil your undies together? Students in the Cover Crops in Agroecosystems (PLSCI 4125) course learn about the importance of soil nutrient cycling by, among other things, burying a new pair of cotton underwear at the beginning of the semester, then pulling it out at the end to see how much it’s decomposed.
“If you pull the undies out and they’re filled with holes, what you’re seeing is the benefit of our beautiful microorganisms in the soil performing nutrient cycling and all the other ecosystem services that these little guys provide,” said Nazir Adam Sharifi ’24. Sharifi took PLSCI 4125 in Fall 2023 and is now a graduate student in the lab of Matthew Ryan, associate professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science, Soil and Crop Sciences Section.
Ryan teaches Cover Crops in Agroecosystems, in which students learn about the benefits and logistics of planting cover crops, like legumes and grasses, in between cash crop plantings. The practice sequesters carbon dioxide, improves long-term soil fertility and reduces soil erosion – especially important as the changing climate increases the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events.
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