The Penn State Weed Science program participates and provides leadership in reduced-tillage organic systems experiments (acronym; ROSE). We are currently initiating a new OREI-funded systems experiment.
Look for a project page an extension-outreach resources soon.
Our long-term research and extension goal for this work is to support the adoption of coupled reduced-tillage and cover cropping practices that facilitate the intensification of domestic organic grain production without compromising environmental quality and economic viability of organic farms.
This research builds on our previous Penn State and regional research efforts that have focused on organic management tradeoffs related to reduced-tillage strategies in the transition to organic, no-till planting of corn and soybean into high-residue cover crop mulch (Wallace et al. 2017; Wallace et al. 2018; Champagne et al. 2019), no-till winter grain production, and use of relay cover cropping practices (Wallace et al. 2020).