Five years ago, the U.S. Department of Energy tapped the Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute (DWFI) at the University of Nebraska to tackle the critical challenge of scientifically validating carbon sequestration in Midwest corn and soybean production. In a new Water for Food podcast, DWFI Director of Research Christopher Neale said the $3 million project at the intersection of energy, agriculture and policy is now in its final 120-day closeout phase.

“We’ve been working on measuring and modeling the whole carbon cycle in agricultural fields in the Midwest, specifically that produce grains for the ethanol industry,” said Neale.

Neale says they studied fields that were representative of the acreage providing grain for the ethanol industry in different types of production systems. “So here in Nebraska, at Mead, one of our fields is an irrigated corn-soybean rotation, direct planting, … one’s in Iowa, which is rain-fed, but also corn-soybean, and it has cover crops…and then the third field was in Morris, Minnesota, also corn and soybeans, but in a different climate,” said Neale. “So what we’ve been doing is using the measurements in the models with all these other inputs to calculate how much carbon is sequestrated in a cornfield in a typical year, and then in soybeans and in the rotation of corn and soybeans.”

Listen to the podcast to learn more.
DWFI podcast episode 53 26:29

The Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute (DWFI) at the University of Nebraska was founded with the mission to have a lasting and significant impact on achieving more food security with less pressure on scarce water resources by conducting scientific and policy research, using the research results to inform policy makers, and sharing knowledge through education and communication.