Progress report for LS24-395
Project Information
Most states in the southeastern USA report large feed grain deficits annually because of high animal production, primarily poultry and swine. Farmland exists to support a larger percentage of local feed grain production, but 85-90% of this is dryland production, relying on seasonal rainfall. While the region boasts high annual precipitation totals, the predominant soil type, especially in the Atlantic Coastal Plain, is sandy loam or loamy sand, which has a low water-holding capacity and low organic matter. Thus, intermittent drought conditions are still prevalent in the region to restrict grain yields. When climate change in future years is expected to worsen these factors that hinder crop productivity, it is irresponsible not to consider modifying existing cropping systems to make them more resilient, productive, and profitable.
While agricultural production systems in the southeastern USA are more diverse than other regions, the crops with highest production acres are water, nutrient, and management intensive. Meanwhile, grain sorghum production in the southeastern USA remains limited to under 100,000 acres. Grain sorghum requires less water than corn and soybean to produce a bushel of grain. Just as important, grain sorghum has a unique ability to slow down maturity to wait for adequate soil moisture. This physiological adaptation allows sorghum to be less affected by intermittent drought conditions that are frequently observed during summer months in the southeastern USA. However, more empirical evidence that is specifically generated in this region is desperately needed to inform university extension, crop consultants, and farmers. Nearly all data generated on sorghum productivity present in the literature or online comes from the Great Plains, which is not representative.
This project will determine sorghum’s climate resiliency in the southeastern USA by quantifying its regional productivity, water-use efficiency, carbon sequestration potential, and nematode suppressive ability. These production statistics generated at four on-farm sites in three states will also be generated for corn and soybean in the same fields to make a fair comparison across crops. Further, input costs will be recorded for these three crops within each farm trial to compare profitability as well as help build an interactive enterprise budget for farmers to use for making crop decisions on their farm. Cooperating farmers in this project will assist in producing enterprise budgets and review them prior to rollout.
Data generated from the on-farm research trials will be made publicly available in peer-reviewed publications, online, and through Extension events, including annual field days at the on-farm locations. Hosting these field days on-farm and within three highly underserved communities will encourage attendance from underrepresented minorities and create a more inclusive, discussion-based format. Project investigators and cooperating partners have experience reaching the target audience through diversified outreach strategies, which will be critical to the project by ensuring the information generated will reach stakeholders who can benefit from this research.
This project addresses the SARE sustainability goals to increase long-term profit, improve health and productivity of farmland, and enhance quality of life for farmers in underserved communities.
- Conduct on-farm, multi-crop yield trials to assess sorghum productivity in regional cropping systems.
- Measure belowground biomass accumulation of sorghum and competing crops to assess carbon sequestration potential.
- Estimate plot-level water use efficiency of sorghum and other row crops by measuring terminal yield and total water inputs.
- Monitor nematode population levels in a problematic on-farm location before and after sorghum cultivation compared with other prevalent broadleaf-cereal crop rotations (g., soybean-corn).
- In the multi-crop trials, track variable input costs and generate per acre profitability based on yield and various sell prices.
Cooperators
- - Producer
- - Producer
- - Producer
- - Producer
- - Technical Advisor
Research
Objective 1. Conduct on-farm, multi-crop yield trials to assess sorghum productivity in regional cropping systems.
Purpose. Reliable on-farm data will be generated to compare productivity, profitability, and resiliency of row crops on marginal dryland farming systems. Four cooperating farms located in Edenton, NC, Allendale, SC, Bennettsville, SC, and Canon, GA will serve as field sites. At each farm, corn, sorghum, and soybean will be grown (approximately 1 acre per crop) to compare grain yield and serve as the foundational resource for objectives 2-5. Crop maturity will be aligned for a fair comparison of yield potential and stability while each crop will be managed based on the respective farmers best management practices. Inputs and associated costs, including seed costs, will be recorded by each farm manager that will facilitate economic assessment (Objective 5) by co-PI Thayer.
Participants. The four on-farm locations will be managed by the following cooperating farmers: Lee Dunn (Edenton, NC), Joe Oswald (Allendale, SC), Josh O’tuel (Bennettsville, SC), and Brian Fleming (Canon, GA). These four growers have experience producing all three crops in the study and have a track record of properly managing these crops for maximum profitability. The PhD student (to be recruited) will lead crop comparison trials under the supervision of PI Boyles. The PhD student will create experimental designs, schedule planting, data collection, and harvest timelines, collect agronomic data, work with cooperating farmers to compile management inputs, oversee harvest, analyze data, and publish research findings. The research technician (25% effort per project year) will assist with field-related tasks such as seed preparations, planting, data collection, and harvest. Co-PI Brenton of Carolina Seed Systems will assist with sorghum hybrid development decisions each year.
On-farm field design. A randomized complete block design (RCBD) will be used to perform side-by-side comparisons among corn, sorghum, and soybean. Each block will consist of one corn hybrid, one sorghum hybrid, and one soybean variety, where three plots in each block correspond to each of the three crops. The blocks will be replicated three times within each on-farm field site to overcome spatial field effects. Each plot within block will be of equal size and no smaller than 200 feet in length by 20 feet in width (eight rows), which is approximately one-tenth of an acre. The three replicates of each set will be stacked by range moving into the field so that each set (three replicate blocks of three genotypes) encompasses 600 feet in length (200 feet x 3 reps) and 20-30 feet in width (one-third of an acre in total). This design per field site will include five sets, where each set contains a unique corn hybrid, sorghum hybrid, and soybean variety. The five sets will serve to avoid genotype-specific effects within crop and have a more accurate comparison among the three crops. Each crop, as commonly practiced, will be planted with a row spacing of 30 inches. Thus, a field site at the four on-farm locations will have five sets, three blocks (replicates) per set, and three plots per block, which equates to a grand total of 45 plots (15 per crop) and approximately five acres in trial size (approximately 600 feet length and 350 feet width). This makes the experiment robust with respect to replicated treatments while maintaining a feasible dimension for cooperating farmers. Each cooperating farmer is budgeted $7,000 per year ($1,400 per acre) to reimburse for input costs ($700 per acre) while providing a $700 per acre remittance to accommodate the inconvenience and time for conducting the trials. This design will be repeated in project years 1 and 2.
Key experiment considerations. Border rows will be excluded from combine harvest for yield assessment, only including the middle four rows for analysis. The five corn hybrids and five soybean varieties selected for this experiment will be collectively decided by the cooperating farmers by ranking their top selections from a list of 10-12 options per crop, which will be compiled by the PhD student from consults with county agents and seed industry representatives. The five sorghum hybrids will also be decided annually by co-PI Brenton, and hybrid seed will be increased in the counter nursery near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The five entries into the study will be paired based on available maturity data, where the earliest corn, sorghum, and soybean genotype will be grouped together as “Set 1”. Similarly, Set 5 will contain the latest maturing corn, sorghum, and soybean entry.
Data collection and analysis. Crop maturity inevitably impacts grain yield. As such, the PhD student and/or research technician will visit each on-farm location one-time during flowering to rate maturity for each crop, using a 1-9 nominal scale, where 1 represents earliness and 9 represents lateness. Sites are too distant to collect flowering dates on a regular basis. Each cooperating farmer will harvest the corn plots to record weight and bag a small sample per plot to be analyzed by the PhD student for percent moisture and test weight. The PhD student will coordinate with the cooperating farmers when to visit the field for sorghum and soybean harvest, which will occur in the same trip. Immediately prior to harvest, the project team will collect disease ratings, plant height, and other field notes. Statistics will be generated using custom R scripts as well as R package ‘lme4’ (Bates et al. 2007) to consider all experimental design effects including entry, block, replicate, location, and their interactions. Significant differences will be determined using Tukey’s honestly significant difference (HSD) tests with the R package ‘agricolae’ (Mendiburu and de Mendiburu, 2020) as carried out previously (Boyles et al. 2022).
Outcomes and outreach. Raw data will be generated from four on-farm field sites strategically positioned in major feed grain producing regions of the southeastern USA. These data will be compiled and analyzed to examine sorghum’s competitiveness in terms of productivity, sustainability (Objectives 2-4), and profitability (Objective 5). This objective is paramount to the project as these on-farm trials will serve as the foundation for all following objectives. While this reliability on these trials puts the remaining objectives at risk, working across two years at four different sites (in three states) with cooperating farmers that have experience with research trials mitigates most of this risk. Corn, sorghum, and soybean grain yield comparisons will determine the production advantage(s) of each crop on dryland soils throughout the region. A PhD student will be trained to conduct field trials, coordinate data collection, and analyze data to publish research findings in peer-reviewed journals. Research results will be presented at regional field days in these on-farm locations in year 2 by the project team, and the PhD student will present final research findings in year 3 at the ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meeting. All final data relevant to growers will be published online as a Clemson Extension Topic (www.clemson.edu/extension/topics) using tables, figures, and bulleted summaries that are convenient for informing crop rotation decisions.
Objective 2. Measure belowground biomass accumulation of sorghum and competing crops to assess carbon sequestration potential.
Purpose. Aboveground biomass either gets harvested or gets left in the field, which typically does not get permanently stored in the soil to contribute significantly toward carbon sequestration. This objective focuses on quantifying belowground root biomass that can provide a meaningful source of soil organic carbon (Yang and Tilman 2020). As more resources are becoming available to growers that incorporate sustainable and regenerative farming practices into their operations, there needs to be empirical data to quantify the value of practices that increase carbon storage and soil health. This project will generate this information in an “apples-to-apples” comparison with major feed grain crops.
Participants. The PhD student will coordinate with the research technician during the second trip to each on-farm field site at harvest to collect root samples. This effort will include the PhD student, Clemson research technician, and Carolina Seed Systems research technician. Project investigators, particularly PI Boyles, will work with project cooperator Dr. Rongzhong Ye for technical advice on biomass sampling and analysis of carbon content of root samples across crops.
Experimental design and sampling. This objective, like all subsequent objectives, will use the field design described in Objective 1 across the four on-farm locations. At each field site, representative 1 m2 (2.5 feet x 4 feet dimension) sections within each plot will be collected using manual excavation immediately following combine harvest. Root biomass samples (n=45) will be brought back to the Clemson Pee Dee Research and Education Center field lab to be washed thoroughly with water to remove soil. After cleaning, fresh root weight will be collected for each sample according to Trachsel et al. (2011). Root samples will then be dried in a large, electric dryer for five days to collect dry root weights.
Data analysis. In addition to root biomass measurements, carbon content of crop root biomass will be estimated at 47% (Jacobs et al. 2020) to calculate the soil carbon input from belowground biomass of each crop as measured in megagrams of carbon per acre (and hectare). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be performed in R. If the ANOVA recognizes significant results, a Tukey’s HSD test will be deployed to compare root measurements by crop and identify significant differences in root biomass among corn, sorghum, and soybean. Triplicated field plots should adequately account for sampling variation.
Outcomes and outreach. A two-year, four location study to compare root biomass production among corn, sorghum, and soybean will deliver which crop(s) is more valuable to soil carbon sequestration in the southeastern USA. Carbon storage will be calculated for each crop from belowground biomass samples collected within each plot (45 plots per location, four locations, and two years to total 360 plots). Five hybrids (corn and sorghum) or varieties (soybean) per crop will provide an indication of within-species variation among commercially-adapted material, which is useful to determine potential improvement in this trait. The PhD student will learn to process root samples for biomass measurements and calculating carbon storage per acre, and the student will publish this information in a peer-reviewed journal article.
Objective 3. Estimate plot-level water use efficiency of sorghum and other row crops by measuring terminal yield and total water inputs.
Purpose. This objective will compare water-use efficiency of corn, sorghum, and soybean using on-farm trial data and build robust maps of sorghum water-use efficiency at the field level across the Southeast.
Participants. Co-PI Brenton will lead Objective 3 and his research technician partially supported by the project will be responsible for deploying, monitoring, and maintaining weather stations across field sites. The PhD student will work with co-PI Brenton to analyze compiled data detailed below and generate project reports, research publications, and extension bulletins. Cooperating farmers will ask as a backup resource to provide small diagnostics or repairs for the weather stations to minimize long-distance travel for investigators that is not warranted.
Data generation. Portable HOBO weather stations (already attained by PI Boyles) will be placed in each of the four on-farm fields to monitor precipitation, temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, and wind speed. The 1-hr recording intervals will be compiled to account for environmental differences across field sites. SoilVUE soil water content sensors (already attained by PI Boyles) will be placed at the HOBO weather station position to record volumetric water content at three soil depths of 6, 15, and 24 inches over the full growing season. As stated above, water-use efficiency will be calculated for every plot in the study using terminal grain yield and total precipitation from planting to harvest date. Outside of the on-farm research trials, co-PI Brenton will tabulate mean grain yield performance by field and by farm from a subset of over 100 established customers that produce the same Carolina Seed Systems hybrid. A custom R script developed by PI Boyles that uses field-level GPS coordinates will extract total precipitation from historical weather reports produced by a weather station nearest each field location (Boyles et al. 2019).
Measuring water-use-efficiency. Standard formula to measure water-use efficiency will rely on rainfall total (R) and soil water content at planting and harvest to calculate total water use (WU) as follows: WU = R + SMCend – SMCstart (Angus and Herwaarden 2001). Water-use efficiency (WUE) is the yield divided by water use, WUE = Y / WU. For example, a plot that yields 100 bushels per acre at a site-year that has 20 inches of rainfall during the growing season and the soil moisture was unchanged from planting to harvest would have a WUE = 5. While this is a longstanding measure that has been used repeatedly, a direct comparison of water-use efficiency for these three crops in the southeastern USA has never been reported. Similarly, field- and farm-level sorghum water-use efficiency will be estimated using grain yield reports compiled by Carolina Seed Systems (co-PI Brenton and team) from growers and extracted rainfall total per location.
Objective 4. Monitor nematode population levels in a problematic on-farm location before and after sorghum cultivation compared with other prevalent broadleaf-cereal crop rotations (e.g., soybean-corn).
Purpose. Three of the on-farm field sites (excluding Canon, GA) will serve as adequate nematode sampling locations because of predominant sandy loam soil type and farmer history of nematode pressure. Nematode sampling will be conducted at each site at planting, mid-season (one location), and harvest to allow for a thorough understanding of population dynamics (i.e., quantity and diversity) associated with each crop.
Participants. Co-PI Roberts has extensive experience in nematode sampling and thus will lead Objective 4 as well as train and supervise the PhD student to process samples throughout the experiment. Both research technicians will assist in soil sampling across field sites during planting and harvest as well as sample mid-season at a single location (O’tuel Farms in Marlboro County).
Sampling protocol. Individual areas of each farm may be partitioned for sampling based on symptoms of nematode damage (i.e., reduced plant vigor, premature wilting, etc.) and partitions will not encompass an area greater than five acres. Within each partition, soil cores will be extracted using a 0.5” diameter soil auger placed to the depth of the root system (i.e., 6-10”). Samples will be collected along crop rows at ~250 ft intervals in a five gallon bucket and 20-30 soil cores will be combined and transferred for extraction using the centrifugal flotation method (Jenkins, 1964).
Nematode quantification and speciation. Extracted nematodes suspended in H2O will be classified and enumerated based on morphological characteristics under 40x magnification using an Olympus Compund Microscope. Baerman funnel or mist extraction methodologies for nematode quantification will be implemented should Meloidogyne spp. (i.e., root knot nematodes) be detected in soil extractions. Both methods allow for enhanced detection of nematodes during their endoparastic stage, which may not be fully detected using centrifugation alone. If warranted, within-genus speciation will be determined at a given field site using molecular, DNA-based diagnostics. Individual nematodes will be extracted into microcentrifuge tubes containing AE buffer (10mM Tris-Cl and 0.5 mM EDTA, pH 9.0), macerated with a pipette tip, and the remaining solution will be used for 28S subunit amplification. Amplification will be performed using PCR with 10 uM each of universal primers RK28SF/MR, 2X Apex Taq red Master Mix Polymerase, DNA clean H2O, and 1 uL of DNA template in an Eppendorf MasterCyler Nexus thermal cycler. The thermal cycler program for PCR will include denaturation at 95 C for 5 min, followed by 40 cycles of denaturation at 94 C for 30 seconds, annealing at 55 C for 45 seconds, and extension at 72 C for 1 min followed by a final extension at 72 C for 10 min. The remaining PCR product will be cleaned using ExoSap-IT following the manufacturers protocol and sent for sequencing at a nearby genomics core facility. The DNA sequence obtained will be compared with known sequences using the BLAST homology search function available within the GenBank sequence database. Additional phylogenetic analyses will be performed as needed. All sample data obtained will be curated in a database for future research.
Objective 5. In the multi-crop trials, track variable input costs and generate per acre profitability based on yield and various sell prices.
Purpose. In year 3, crop enterprise budgets to guide producer decision making will be built based on data collected on-farm in the multiyear, multi-crop comparison trials (years 1-2). Enterprise budgets will be created for use by producers to estimate profitability of sustainable cropping rotations and management practices. Emphasis will be placed on generating budgets that are interactive and allow producers to input operation specific data to tailor results.
Participants. Co-PI Thayer will lead Objective 5 to develop crop enterprise budges and compare crop profitability using project-generated data. PI Boyles, co-PI Brenton, and the PhD student will collectively be tasked with compiling the on-farm data needed for this objective. Co-PI Thayer will work closely with Clemson Extension Specialist Alex Coleman (project cooperator) to put research results into proper reports for communicating project output in an effective manner.
Analysis and modeling of budget scenarios. To assess risk and communicate uncertainty of the system, simulation models will be constructed, and multiple scenarios will be built. Scenario analysis incorporating uncertainty will provide expected ranges of key profitability indicators under market variability. Scenarios will attempt to mimic previous market conditions. Breakeven analysis will help inform producers of potential tradeoffs within the system and potential thresholds.
Outcomes and outreach. To disseminate research and communicate findings to producers, the project team will work with cooperating producers to prepare budgets, handouts, and other programming to address the economics of the multi-crop systems. These materials will be distributed through traditional field days and planned Extension events. Enterprise budgets and findings from simulation models will be made available through an interactive project website (see details in Outreach plan) to facilitate adoption of this budget tool. Online permanent access to these materials will allow for access outside of traditional field days and in-person events.
Despite a tight timeline between the project start date and planting dates across the four trial locations, we were able to successfully plant all locations in 2024. While working towards a second year of data for this study, we were encouraged with preliminary results from the 2024 growing season, and the insights the data provided for work in future project years. Unfortunately, the replicated soybean plots at the Bennettsville, SC, location were destroyed by deer predation, despite a replant. Additionally, the second replication of sorghum in the Georgia on-farm location was lost due to high weed pressure. Although we were disappointed at the loss of these data points, we were excited to get insights into the implications of crop replants and crop insurance when considering the economic aspects of this study. Crop yields overall were down significantly in 2024 due to adverse weather conditions, predominantly driven by severe drought periods during vulnerable crop growth stages. Plot yields reflected this trend with relatively low yields (Fig 1). The 2024 variety performance information was distributed to participating on-farm growers as a resource for understanding cultivar/hybrid selection in their respective locations.
Notably, water-limiting conditions of the 2024 growing season presented an opportunity to focus on the objective of understanding the water-use efficiency of the crops in the study. Preliminary analyses found a correlation between WUE and crop type, which will be investigated further when 2025 data are incorporated (Fig 2). Similarly, initial observations indicated a possible relationship between crop type and soil carbon sequestration potential. These first year findings support our objectives, and the role that understanding crop selection has on long-term soil health and farm profitability.
Educational & Outreach Activities
Participation Summary:
Participating target audience. Project participants include four cooperating farmers (Lee Dunn, Brian Fleming, and Josh O’tuel), Clemson investigators (Boyles, Roberts, and Thayer), co-PI Brenton of Carolina Seed Systems, a Clemson PhD student that will be hired from project funds to lead research objectives, an undergraduate student that will be hired to support economic assessment (Objective 5), one Clemson and one Carolina Seed Systems research technician that will be partially funded from the project, project cooperators Alex Coleman (Clemson Sorghum and Small Grains Extension Specialist), Dr. Rongzhong Ye (Clemson Associate Professor of Soil Biogeochemistry), and Brent Crafton (Director of Feed Ingredient Utilization at the United Sorghum Checkoff Program), and the five members of the External Advisory Committee (names and affiliations listed in Evaluation). PI Boyles will hold a kickoff meeting with project investigators and cooperating farmers near the project start date to have each participating team member in agreement with individual responsibilities that align with project objectives. With each member having a role in the proposal development, this kickoff meeting will be an opportunity for PI Boyles to emphasize the overall project goal and communicate how proposed objectives are interrelated. The kickoff meeting is critical to start the project off quickly and effectively, which includes finalizing a plan for recruitment and hiring of a PhD student that will start in project year 1. Subsequent project meetings will be held biannually that are approximately one month prior to planting (April) and one month after harvest before winter nursery (October). The External Advisory Committee will be asked to remotely join the April project meeting to allow each project investigator a chance to report progress and solicit feedback from the committee for consideration of modifying tasks and, importantly, developing an appropriate outreach strategy.
Broader target audience. The primary audience of the project is row crop farmers in the southeastern USA. Clemson extension has found that in-person field days, bulletins, and online resources can collectively reach most farmers in today’s agriculture, and the outreach plan detailed below highlight the details for each method of communication. This project wants to also educate county extension agents through field days and in-services at different on-farm locations so that they are informed on latest research and can deliver these results to growers and stakeholders that have come to trust them. It is important to engage sorghum seed industry representatives, scouts, buyers, handlers, end-users, and consumers throughout the project to facilitate growth in the market and allow project members to hear both positive comments and concerns about sorghum grain. End-users that will be asked to attend project outings include representatives from the poultry and swine industry, pet food industry, food product sector, and renewable energy sector.
Research application to farmers. There is very little concern about project results not being adopted from regional row crop farmers. Results will address issues that are of utmost important to growers, which are yield, profitability, and farm sustainability. Research trials are concentrated on-farm and positioned in strategic geographic locations across three states to maximize grower awareness and grower confidence in project results. Cooperating farmers in this project are highly respected by neighboring growers for their farming ability. This is not an approach where row crop research trials are planted on a university research center and managed in a way that is atypical of modern farm practices. Farmers will have the opportunity to observe the trials in-person at field days prior to crop harvest so they can make their own inferences as well as gain trust in the data that get disseminated after harvest and analysis. Perhaps the majority of row crop farmers are either not aware of sorghum or have not considered growing it, but from prior field days, extension events, and prospective customer interactions with co-PI Brenton (Carolina Seed Systems), the project team has met few farmers unwilling to try sorghum and diversify their crop portfolio. There is simply just limited information about sorghum’s capability in the Southeast, as well as adequate resources about where to sell the harvested grain. The outreach efforts outlined subsequently have a plan to address this by getting the empirical research results from the project to all stakeholders with a level of interest.
Project engagement team. The goal of this project is to better understand the resiliency and adaptability of sorghum in the southeastern United States and provide valuable information to growers considering rotations with this crop. Project results will be communicated to growers through a series of outputs intended to enhance understanding of the benefits and potential concerns associated with sorghum plantings within a rotation. Co-PIs Boyles and Brenton are actively engaged with growers in the state and co-PI Roberts has previous experience with successfully developing Extension programs and events for growers in the Pee Dee region. Co-PI Thayer will devote personal time (one month salary requested in year 3 of budget) toward communicating economic reports through extension events (see below), with support in developing material from other project investigators, the PhD student, and the undergraduate student that will be recruited in her lab and hired from requested project funds. Extension in-service trainings will be led by PI Boyles and co-PI Roberts. Sorghum and Small Grains Extension Specialist Alex Coleman will be a critical project cooperator by being engaged with ongoing research through the project to have firsthand knowledge of the results and can translate this information into an effective message for farmers and stakeholders that will be shared at field days and extension events. Certainly, all co-PIs will work closely together to coordinate these public outreach efforts and extension in-service trainings that are described below to encourage attention to and adoption of project recommendations.
Considerations of DEI during outreach planning. Field days and extension events will be advertised broadly across local newspapers (specific details listed in field day section below) and social media platforms to encourage attendance of a demographic that is representative of the rural farm communities in the on-farm research locations. This includes a high percentage of individuals that identify as black, indigenous, and/or people of color (BIPOC). Events will be conducted with an effort to ensure information that relates to increasing farm productivity and profitability reaches all farmers in the region. PI Boyles and co-investigators will work with Small Grains Extension Specialist Alex Coleman (project cooperator) to get information disseminated timely and through all relevant channels. Co-PI Roberts (70% Extension appointment) will also be a key player to match the proper information formats with the best communication platforms and will lead organization of field days. To encourage inclusion of stakeholders in these underserved communities and surrounding counties, local field days will be held at on-farm sites instead of Clemson’s Research and Education Centers as traditionally done. Holding these events in these target areas in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia increases the likelihood of attendance and interaction of producers from underserved communities that may not typically attend field days at traditional research sites. Several smaller, more targeted events increase the ability to have interactive discussions so that important farmer questions get answered and concerns get addressed. Dr. Julian Nixon, the CAFLS Director of Diversity and Inclusion, will be asked to serve on the project’s external advisory committee. With a strong background in agriculture, project investigators will request feedback from Dr. Nixon on the design of outreach events and how to best orient them to increase inclusion.
On-farm field days. On-farm field days will be held at each of the four research trial sites in project year 2. Events will be scheduled prior to corn harvest (August) so that growers and other stakeholders can compare crop performance in the field and hybrid/variety differences within each crop. These field days will be half-day events in the morning, ending with a catered lunch to facilitate added networking and discussions. The event will be organized in a way that is very much engaging and hands-on by devoting adequate time to walking through plots in the field. Co-PI Roberts has a strong track record of hosting successful field days in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. At the event, the cooperating farmer at each respective location will discuss the management practices implemented throughout the season and also describe the corn hybrids and soybean varieties selected for the study. Co-PI Brenton will highlight the advantages and disadvantages of each sorghum hybrid (n = 5) used in the field experiment. The project team will request the attendance of Brent Crafton of the United Sorghum Checkoff and use existing relationships with the National Sorghum Producers to engage all current and potential sorghum producers in the region. County extension agents (Clemson University, North Carolina State University, and University of Georgia) representing the county hosting the field day as well as agents in neighboring counties will be asked to attend the field day so that they can here the grower discussion and learn more about sorghum management and potential benefits. This attendance is in addition to the extension in-service events that are described below. Extension bulletins will be developed by the PhD student to disseminate year 1 project results at the year 2 field days. These year 1 results will include yield comparisons, within-crop hybrid/variety comparisons, carbon storage potential by crop, nematode suppression by crop, and profitability estimates. Each topic in the bulletin will be discussed in detail during the event, which will be led by the objective leads detailed in the participants section of the Approach and Methods. To try to maximize participation at field days, the Clemson University media relations team will work with local media outlets, including nearby newspaper outlets (People Sentinel for Allendale, SC; Herald Advocate and Pee Dee News for Marlboro, SC; The Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald for Northampton, NC; and the Hartwell Sun for Canon, GA). In addition, the project team will work through social media platforms to spread the word about the day and time of these events and use the Clemson University extension webpage as an additional outreach source. County agents will be asked to spread the word to growers in their county(ies) through methods of their choosing. Funds are requested to support each field day event in project year 2.
Extension in-service trainings. Half-day workshops for in-service trainings are budgeted in year 2 to provide Clemson Extension Agents the opportunity to learn directly about the project results observed in year 1. Workshops will be held at the two South Carolina on-farm locations (Allendale and Marlboro) later in the growing season (mid- to late-July) to reduce travel for agents, provide multiple training dates, and increase geographic/environment relevance. Co-PI Brenton of Carolina Seed Systems will be a key educator in these in-service trainings using past knowledge about grower preferences, sorghum hybrid availability in the regional commercial market, buyer options within region, and a plethora of management considerations such as tillage impacts on crop performance, pre-emergent herbicide considerations, post-emergent weed control, pest and disease scouting, harvest aids, harvest timing, grain quality awareness, and rotational benefits. This past knowledge is based on multiple year feedback from a customer base of more than 150 sorghum growers throughout the Southeast. Because county agents are very busy during the growing season, project investigators will create a remote learning session during the winter months (January or February) for Clemson Extension personnel as well as any interested graduate students in Plant & Environmental Sciences to join and view a presentation of research results. The PhD student will lead the development of presentation slides, with input as needed from PI Boyles and co-PIs. The in-person workshops and remote session will educate participants on all aspects related to sorghum production in the southeastern USA while also comparing sorghum performance and sustainability benefits with corn and soybean.
Interactive website development. A professional website will be designed, developed, and maintained by a third-party provider for interactive use by farmers, extension personnel, and educators. This website will be multi-purpose. First, it will house all data summaries generated from the project, which includes annual reports on crop comparison of yield performance, belowground carbon development and storage, water-use efficiency, and economics. Regarding the latter, a major purpose of developing a new website is to support the crop enterprise budgeting tool that will be developed by co-PI Thayer in the final project year. The website will be designed in a user-friendly format for farmers (and extension agents) to enter fixed and variable costs and sell price to compare risk and net profit margins among crops. Within the webpage, established crop comparisons will be built using on-farm data averages from the project to create simple reports and enable quick viewing for general answers. After the website goes live in year 3 of the project, co-PI Thayer will host short extension event trainings at university research centers (Clemson Pee Dee REC, Clemson Edisto REC, and NC State Upper Coastal Plain Research Station in Rocky Mount), These 1-2 hour training sessions will be hands-on for growers and extension personnel to understand how to access the website and utilize the crop enterprise budgets. One month of salary support is requested for co-PI Thayer as well as travel funds to allow her to devote adequate time toward website design, website sharing, crop enterprise budget training.
Communication of research results. Major research findings from the project will be published in agronomy focused peer-reviewed journals such as Agronomy, Crop Science, and Field Crops Research. Key pieces of information will be shared after field day events through write-ups in trade journals available to farmers in the southeastern USA, particularly the Southeast FarmPress, while also updating the broader agriculture community across the country through online press editorials such as Morning Ag Clips, Farm Progress, and Seed World. PI Boyles and other project investigators have a track record of disseminating research progress through these communication channels. The PhD student will attend the ASA, CSSA, and SSSA international annual meeting in project year 3 (2026) to present final project results. Extension bulletins will be developed on individual objectives proposed for improved understanding of sorghum adaptation to the southeastern climate, below-ground biomass accumulation and carbon sequestration potential, sorghum water-use efficiency and comparison to other commonly grown field crops and potential impacts related to nematode populations associated with sorghum production. Bulletins developed will be available for electronic download through the project website, Clemson Cooperative Extension and the Clemson University IPM Center (www.clemson.edu/extension/ipm).
Evaluation of outreach success. Retrospective surveys using Qualtrics will be conducted to understand historical perceptions and experience with sorghum plantings, and to assess how knowledge gained from the proposed workshop will impact future decisions to utilize sorghum as a rotation crop on survey participant farms. Results from these surveys will be used by project investigators to assess short-term impacts of the project while also providing ideas to improve research and outreach moving beyond the project period. In addition, feedback from each outreach event will be solicited from select attendees and county agents will be asked to rate the effectiveness and value of the in-service trainings to report back to the project investigators. Similarly, we will use the Zoom post-meeting survey tool to request feedback from participants in the remote educational session on sorghum production and benefits.
Learning Outcomes
Sorghum production
Dryland farming practices
Project Outcomes
This project supports agriculture sustainability by giving growers region-specific data on sorghum performance in a region where an understanding of how sorghum could fit into the cropping system has not been previously available. By understanding situations where sorghum may be a profitable and resilient option, the study provides producers with additional options in cropping decisions that may be more able to adapt to changing conditions. Additionally, this research is providing valuable information on the effects of crop selection on soil health, giving a better understanding of long-term soil quality and resource sustainability. These findings will allow grain crop producers to make more informed decisions on their crop selection to more positively impact their near- and long-term farm sustainability and profitability.
In 2024, all three crops were planted around the end crop insurance date for corn in the specific region of each location due to time constraints with receiving the grant. We recognize that the planting date is not optimal for any of the crops involved and could decrease the value of results obtained for crop performance. To combat this in 2025, we will implement a staggered planting date for corn and a secondary planting date for soybean and sorghum. Additionally, we are creating smaller-scale studies at multiple Clemson research centers where all three crops are planted at each staggered planting date (approximately April 1, May 1, and May 22) to better understand how planting date affects the productivity of each crop in dryland cropping systems.