By Oluwatuyi Olowoyeye, 2023-2026 FFAR Fellow
at Iowa State University
The Perennial Groundcover (PGC) system is a potential shift away from conventional land management and crop production in the U.S. Unlike traditional cover crops that are terminated and replanted annually, the PGC system provides year-round living cover that grows simultaneously with row crops. PGC has all the benefits of traditional cover crops, including erosion control, water retention and nutrient conservation, but extends these benefits to the entire year. My research as a FFAR Fellow at Iowa State is focused on modeling the ecosystem services in this novel system. Field trials, while essential, are limiting because they can’t include a broad range of scenarios. Modeling allows us to move beyond the limits to simulate, test and forecast the behavior of PGC across various climates, soils and management practices. Yet, modeling PGC is not a plug-and-play endeavor. Because the system involves growing two plants simultaneously, we need to adapt known parameters (like soil moisture, leaf area index etc.) and calibrate new ones (like grass planting operation, soil layer thickness etc.) to fit existing process-based models like Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) and Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM). What makes this research effort unique is the collaborative foundation on which it is built.