Episode 31: Cover Crop Hydro-economics
“Cover crops can reduce water loss, because they can reduce the surface temperature of the soil and reduce soil evaporation, they can capture dew on the soil surface, as well as increase infiltration from rain that falls because there’s more pathways through the roots that form”
A conversation with Dr. Alyssa DeVincentis (Vitidore) and Dr. Ellen Bruno (UC Berkeley) about the costs and benefits of cover crops, SGMA, and drought resilience. Released March 4, 2022.
guests on the show
Dr. Alyssa DeVincentis
Dr. Alyssa DeVincentis is the Co-founder and Director of Science and Technology at Vitidore. Dr. DeVincentis specializes in sustainable agriculture, with a focus on the economic and hydrologic impacts of climate mitigation strategies throughout California and Latin America. She has a PhD and Masters in Hydrologic Sciences from University of California, Davis. Dr. DeVincentis has led development of the Winter Cover Crop Calculator for California almonds and processing tomato and is leading several research trials and research on a new drought tolerant cover crop called Oakville Bluegrass across California. Follow Dr. DeVincentis @AlyssEtal.
Dr. Ellen Bruno
Dr. Ellen Bruno is an Assistant Professor of Cooperative Extension in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley. Dr. Bruno conducts research and extension to address economic questions at the intersection of agriculture and the environment. Her research centers on evaluating policies to improve the allocation of water across users in the face of a changing climate. Her work evaluates the potential for and effectiveness of different policies for managing water resources. Recent projects include estimating the responsiveness of agricultural pumpers to changes in the price of groundwater and potential economic gains from groundwater trade. Follow Dr. Bruno @ellenm_bruno.
Transcript
Sam Sandoval
Bienvenido a Water Talk. In today's episode we're talking about cover crops, their water use, their economic feasibility, and more. Our guests are two very brilliant women, Dr. Alyssa DeVincentis, who is the co-founder and director of science and technology at Vitidore and Dr. Ellen Bruno, an assistant professor of Cooperative Extension in quantitative policy analysis at UC Berkeley. Both of them have a long experience in cover crops, economic analysis, and SGMA, and have long experience in the water field.
Mallika Nocco
Yeah, I think it's a fascinating topic. And it's an important moment for us to be talking about and thinking about cover crops. As someone who's new to California and moved from the Midwest, I learned about cover crops as purely a soil health building strategy, right? If you use cover crops, depending on the cover crop mix, the rooting depth, when they are planted, kind of all of these types of concerns, they can help to build soil health. And this is a strategy that improves the resilience, drought resilience of soils. But there's several things that healthy soils are in terms of just their physical performance, their chemical performance.
From a hydrological standpoint, when we think of a healthy soil, we think of a soil that's able to capture and infiltrate water. And this is because when you have healthy soil practices like cover crops, there's something that happens called aggregation, and the pore structure of soils can change and this can improve infiltration. Additionally, one of the things that's super exciting, and this gets back to what we talked about with Dr. Berhe, when you increase cover crop adoption, and this is a practice in a healthy soil, this can potentially also increase the amount of soil organic matter. And when the soil organic matter increases, that can also promote, like I mentioned, that aggregation and increasing infiltration, but it can also increase the water holding capacity of a soil. That's kind of how I thought about cover crops coming to California.
Then when I got to California, because of how we think about water, and how much how much we care about water and water use here, all of a sudden, there was all this controversy about how much water these cover crops are using. And whether it's a waste of water to plant cover crops and really just thinking of the water cost of implementing the cover crops. And that was just something I'd never thought about before. And now I can't stop thinking about it. So it's just something that's on my mind.
Sam and I, we have a project thinking about this more and Alyssa is actually one of the collaborators on that project with us. And she's one of the first scientists that I met when I came to UC Davis and she was someone who was finishing up her PhD, and I don't know, I just met her and I was like this person is a badass in terms of the way she'd approached research and integrated hydrology, agronomy, social science, and economics. And so she really is, I would say, one of the experts on cover cropping and water use and the economic impacts in the state. And the same with Ellen Bruno who's a cooperative extension assistant professor out of UC Berkeley, she really has done a lot of work with Alyssa on the economic impacts of cover crops. So here, they've just done a really good job setting up this framework for how we think about cover crops in California and thinking long term versus short term benefits and how long it's going to take for that return on investment to take place.
I'm really excited to talk to these two and to learn more about their work. And Faith, I know that I’m maybe the most heavily entrenched in ag world and in this stuff, and then Sam's pretty entrenched too. But you're a little less entrenched in the ag world and I'm curious what your thoughts are about cover crops.
Faith Kearns
Yeah, I mean, for sure I hear the term cover crops a lot. And a lot of our colleagues in addition to you two are studying and working on cover crops in various ways. So I'm excited to learn more about them. And I think it is really interesting to think about right now in the context of the drought and then even just yesterday, there's another study coming out talking about mega drought. And so just you know, people are starting to ask again, how do we deal with these long term water issues and in the face of climate change and so right now, this morning, I'm just very interested in figuring out how cover crops fit into that overall picture about water use and water conservation in the state.
Sam Sandoval
And I would like to add that typically soil is overlooked as an important store of water. And I think cover crops bring back to the conversation the storage capacity that we have right underneath our feet that really can be managed by farmers, they can have direct impact on it, and that this sustainable practice is being questioned but knowing that it has all these different benefits. So for that I decided to invite Ellen and Alyssa. And without further ado, let's just talk with them. Hola Alyssa, hola Ellen, bienvenido a Water Talk.
Ellen Bruno
Thanks for inviting us, Sam.
Alyssa DeVincentis
Yeah, really happy to be here. Thanks, Sam.
Sam Sandoval
Hi, I'm also very excited to have both of you in our podcast. Typically, we think of the periods between growing seasons, late fall and early spring as a period that is not busy for farming practices. However, there is a sustainable agricultural practice called cover cropping, which is planting a crop, which can be grasses and legumes, that provides a leaving seasonal coverage of soil between commodity crops. Cover crops may have well documented benefits. Cover crops have many well documented benefits, we'll talk about them throughout this episode.
This practice has been catching the attention of farmers lately. In the US, farmers reported planting 15.4 million acres of cover crops all over the territory. In California, it's estimated that about 350,000 acres, which is about 3.5% of the harvested cropland is used for this practice, which is a lower adoption rate than in the rest of the states. Just to give an example, Maryland has a high adoption rate of 33% of the harvested cropland and a high growth rate 6% increase. While California is not leading this time, it is good to remember that the state has a lot of specialty crops. And each of these crops require unique considerations.
So I will start with Alyssa. I remember that we used to call your dissertation “watching the grass grow in during winter.” So Alyssa, can you tell us about yourself? And how'd you get interested in cover crops?
Alyssa DeVincentis
Sure. Well, I think it's your fault for my interest in cover crops. I'm not originally from California or familiar with California agriculture at all. I'm from New Jersey, and it's the Garden State but there's not a lot of farms there anymore. And I studied environmental science and economics when I was there. But after undergraduate, I wanted to branch out and come to California because I wanted to work somewhere that was really at the center of food and agriculture and resource challenges. And California is uniquely at the center of those things, and on the frontlines of climate change issues. So I came to California to join your lab and get my PhD, and focus on sustainable agricultural water management. And I found myself studying cover crops because like many students, I just got put on a grant. And I quickly became immersed in the subject, and I haven't left it since then.
Sam Sandoval
And Alyssa, can you provide a little bit more of the basic concepts of cover crops?
Alyssa DeVincentis
Sure, so a cover crop is something that's grown at the opposite time of your cash crop normally, and it can be a grass, legume, or just anything that's providing coverage. And they're normally grown alternating with your cash crop, and the crop has to be terminated at the end of its cycle. And either that can happen naturally - in the Midwest through frost, or severe cold weather. But in California, it usually requires intentional termination. So you have to actually spray a chemical or have specialized equipment to roll it over and incorporate it into your soil. And I want to mention for this conversation, for all of the work that I've done that we're going to talk about, I focus on winter cover crops, which in California are grown from October to March, depending on your harvest and your planting time. So in an annual crop system, you're going to try to terminate your crops around March or April, or terminate them right before your buds emerge for a permanent crop.
Sam Sandoval
So why are cover crops important?
Alyssa DeVincentis
Many reasons. They're primarily and historically used for erosion control, because when you have something growing, it's going to hold the soil in place. But they also improve soil health, and have water quality benefits as well. And one of my favorite things to talk about is that they're a really old practice, and the Romans used them and they're talked about in the Bible. And I think it's because they're just a very simple solution. Growing plants is a very simple way to manage a resource. And they serve many functions. It's a very simple solution to get a lot done. But they're not really adopted widely, despite all of their really well documented benefits. And that's what drew me to them. I wanted to understand why something that is pretty well known to be beneficial isn't used on every possible acre of farmland. So that's what brought me to California to my PhD. And my dissertation work really focused on two things.
First, we looked at the water use of cover crops. That's a really important question in a place like California that is facing so many severe water challenges. So I did several years of fieldwork where I worked on farms that were growing winter cover crops, and we instrumented many fields throughout the state to understand how much water cover crops use and how cover crops affects soil water. And secondly, along with Ellen, I looked at the economic feasibility of cover cropping. And I started interviewing the farmers whose land I was working on. And I branched out and interviewed a few more people throughout the state. And I got a lot of economic and financial data. But I really needed an economist to partner with so I turned to Ellen and we put our heads together along with you and several other people. And we put together a cost benefit analysis of winter cover cropping in California as well.
Sam Sandoval
Cover crops can increase soil organic matter and protect from soil erosion, improve soil structure, increase soil fertility, improve feed from pollinators, break disease cycles, improve water infiltration, and increase the volume of water retain. So these are very good assets for drought resilience.
Alyssa DeVincentis
I believe so. And there's one more that I've been thinking about recently, which is improving air quality. During really intense wind events in the Central Valley or during intense machinery use, we think cover crops and resident vegetation can actually reduce dust production and improve air quality for communities in the Central Valley. So there's really no shortage of benefits.
Sam Sandoval
And I think this is where Ellen comes into the picture in terms of all these benefits, how can they be economically quantified? And that one was a very difficult task that we started thinking about it. And we have Ellen helping us out with that part of the project. Ellen, can you tell us about yourself and how you got interested in cover crops?
Ellen Bruno
Yeah, sure. Well, like Alyssa, I got my PhD at UC Davis. But in the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department. I'm actually from California and so I'm very attached to California issues and interested in working on solutions to California problems. I find issues at the intersection of agriculture and environment to be the most fascinating. For example, I study how farmers respond to changes in their water prices, and how that leads to adjustments in their water use and land use and with implications for informing water policy. But I was very lucky to be approached by Alyssa, who was conducting these experiments related to cover cropping and their water use.
Like she mentioned, you know, she was interested in evaluating if adopting cover crops made economic sense for California farmers and trying to explain why the adoption rates are so much lower in California than the rest of the US, just like those statistics you mentioned earlier, Sam. Is it because of the crops that California is growing or other conditions in California that make it different? And so we teamed up to do this benefit cost analysis and try to shed some light on that question. And specifically studying two big California crops, almonds and tomatoes for tomato processing.
There are a couple of conclusions from that study. One of the main take home messages was that the cost effectiveness of cover cropping is site specific, and depends on the timeframe that is being considered, which varies by whatever cash crop is being grown. So the costs associated with cover cropping occur in the beginning, generally, when you're thinking about investing in cover cropping and adopting the practice, but then the benefits can accrue over time and accumulate over time. And so you have this time dimension that's really important when thinking about the costs and benefits. If you're in it for the long run, cover cropping may look more attractive than if you're only considering doing it for a couple years. And the costs and benefits also depend on other factors specific to an individual operation, what kind of yield improvements is a farmer getting from cover cropping, what cost do they pay for the inputs, and so on.
Part of the study that Alyssa was conducting was coming up with average values to quantify the different costs and benefit components so that we could come up with cost benefit ratios for adopting cover crops in both almonds and tomato systems and trying to characterize the implications of that for an average or typical farmer. We found that using these average values that we estimated in almonds had a benefit cost ratio greater than one when considering a 30 year time horizon. And so what that means is that the benefits are likely to exceed the cost on average, when you're looking out over this 30 year time period.
Sam Sandoval
We have many pieces of the puzzle in here. One is the economics and how all the different pieces play out. The one other important piece is the water piece - is the water those cover crops use more than a cultivated field. Do they deplete soil moisture, what is the mechanics of that Alyssa?
Alyssa DeVincentis
It's a very complicated question, because there are many different ways that cover crops affect the water balance on a farm. They can simply protect the soil from erosion like I mentioned before, but they can also actually reduce water loss, because they can reduce the surface temperature of the soil and reduce soil evaporation. They can capture water on the soil surface, as well as increase infiltration from rain that falls because there's more pathways through the roots that form. And over time, they can improve soil conditions and actually increase soil aggregation, which increases your soil water holding capacity. So the rain that falls gets below ground and then stays there more consistently.
And all of those mechanisms come together so that cover crops generally improve the water balance on a farm in California, because although they may just slightly increase the transpiration from your field, the amount of water they use we saw to be less than an inch, which is really minimal in the context of irrigation budgets for an average farm in California’s Central Valley, which can be three, four, or five acre feet of water a season. And the research that I just mentioned was recently published in California Agriculture, and was some of the first to try to address the specific question in California. We published evapotranspiration values, we looked at fields with cover crops, and then right next door a field with bare ground and we saw that the cover crops barely increase the water that was lost from the field over the winter season.
In fact, something that I think people don't often think about is that there's actually significant water loss just from soil evaporation on a bare field. So whether or not you have a cover crop growing, you're losing water from having bare ground, especially during winters like this one where it's 70 degrees in the middle of February. So adding a cover crop will not hugely impact your water loss. And the water that's used, we think is made up for in the soil water retention. So what I mean by that is we also studied soil moisture. We looked at the soil profile, and how cover crops changed soil moisture content, through three winter seasons. We looked at a record wet year or record dry year, and then kind of an average year. And the impact on soil moisture really depended on the field in question. So like many answers, it depends on the field.
The history of a farm will really impact how cover crops affect soil moisture. So a field that has been growing cover crops for a decade or more is likely to see more soil moisture than a field without cover crops. And other farm management practices also need to be considered in this conversation. So if you combine cover crops with a reduced tillage approach, that will actually increase drought resiliency, and can result in increased soil water several feet down in the soil water profile. And that research hasn't been published yet. But is coming soon. So there's a lot of new information out there about cover crop water use. And it's really exciting to share that with everyone. There's a really renewed interest in this question in light of SGMA and the drought and all that's going on in California.
Mallika Nocco
What you just shared is so counter intuitive. I think that is one of the biggest challenges is this is definitely a case where folks who are just thinking about it the way that you think about plants and soil, which is just think like, oh, the cover crop is going to use more water. But I think it's really interesting, just what you brought up about the loss from soil evaporation, and then all of these other ways that the cover crops are capturing water and how it ends up not being the difference that people maybe have this intuition about, that part's really fascinating and compelling to me.
Sam Sandoval
Alyssa, you were mentioning the cover crops, whether use maybe depends on the location and some of your studies say recognize that in the Sacramento Valley perhaps there is actually no difference between bare ground and the cover crop. In Tulare, the soils and climatic condition change. And then we may experience some increase in the solar output, respiration, or reduction in soil moisture. And you mentioned that minimal part, which is less than an inch. So I think that is something to distinguish how this difference, for instance, in the Southern San Joaquin Valley is affecting or is permeating now into the agricultural community in light of SGMA. So, you'll be working on this and then see some of the implications of cover crops in SGMA groundwater use. Can you tell us these concerns of growers and what you're doing related to this?
Alyssa DeVincentis
Yeah, definitely. We've heard from several growers throughout the state recently, starting last September, that they're concerned that their groundwater use might be overestimated if they grow cover crops during the wintertime. And specifically, some of those growers were from Madera County where there's a really interesting conversation going on right now, because the local Groundwater Sustainability Agency is using remote sensing to track plant growth over time, which is then used to estimate groundwater use. And this is the method that several GSAs throughout the state are using. And this method works very well in the summertime, when there's very well-established relationships between plant growth, canopy cover, and evapotranspiration. If you know something about the field, like what crop is being grown, perhaps.
But some growers there are worried that the green foliag,e the green pixels, that the remote sensing imagery picks up in the wintertime will actually be used to add to their groundwater use estimate. And it will be incorporated into their annual water budget. And they will in some sense be penalized for winter cover cropping because their groundwater use will be perhaps higher than it actually is. And it's a really valid concern because most of the winter cover crops in California are not irrigated. So they're not requiring additional groundwater pumping. And just their existence on a field in the form of a green pixel in the winter doesn't translate to water use in the same way that an irrigated crop in the summertime translates to water use, and then therefore, groundwater pumping.
So we were asked to join a working group to talk about this, share our research, and discuss with the regional water management group in Madera County to talk about cover crop, actual water use. And we did an initial presentation in the fall. And that led to several other speaking opportunities, one with the modeling group in Madera, as well as a larger presentation to resource conservation districts throughout California and Nevada. And with each of these groups, we basically shared our research, like I did today, synthesized what we found and described what we know to be true about cover crop water impacts. And then, we also shared some research about how remote sensing techniques may not provide actual consumptive water using cover crops systems, as they currently exist.
Like I mentioned before, there's kind of a lack of data around cover crop, evapotranspiration, and models need that data to calibrate and be able to accurately predict cover crop water use. It's a problem that I think is solvable. It will require more data collection and a very nuanced approach and a lot of care put into encouraging conservation and sustainable agricultural practices, like cover cropping, and making sure that in estimating groundwater use GSAs aren't inadvertently discouraging people from cover cropping.
Sam Sandoval
In addition to that, I mean, we are always looking at the end users, and related to those end users, providing them tools to be able to manipulate and get their hands dirty in cover crops, and at least start pulling some of the numbers economically. Could you tell us Ellen about the cover crop calculator that you and Alyssa developed and how you have promoted it?
Ellen Bruno
This is an effort that Alyssa really spearheaded, turning this analysis into an online tool that could help potential adopters get a better sense of the economic implications of cover cropping, and really tailor it to their specific operations. When you go to the web address, essentially, you can adjust any of the inputs and adjust both the costs and benefits to match your specific operation. And so both in terms of the mechanisms and how cover cropping is affecting the field, but then also in terms of how we're valuing those changes, and the prices of different inputs or the prices received for the cash crop, it can be tailored to specific operations that way. But as you, Mallika, brought up, there's uncertainty with everything. And the online tool can actually help you to evaluate the uncertainty by say, adjusting the inputs to a range of values that you think are reasonable, and then seeing what that means for your bottom line, in a best case, in a worst case scenario, and so the online tool could really be used to help overcome some of these challenges with uncertainty regarding the impacts.
Sam Sandoval
I definitely think that is such a great tool. Something that you also mentioned was the concept of what is the bottom line? And the bottom line, we represented as a benefit cost ratio, right? If it is greater than one, our bottom line is thumbs up, good economically. I think that you also mentioned something related with when that benefit cost ratio is increased? Can you elaborate a little bit more on when that happened?
Ellen Bruno
There are certain costs that occur just in the first year that you decide to adopt cover crops like, you know, you need to put in some time to just even learn how to do it, right? And that's a cost that we actually incorporate into the calculator, like your time to figure out how to do this. And then there are other costs that accrue every year, if you're buying seed every year and terminating every year. You know, some things accrue occur every year cover cropping, and benefits accrue differently in different time periods. And so there's this time dimension that's really important to consider, because the year in which costs and benefits accrue are important.
It comes back to this concept of the time value of money, and whether or not if you were given the choice to have 100 bucks today versus 100 bucks in 10 years, you would choose 100 bucks today, because that's more valuable to you today than simply thinking about, okay, I could invest it, and in 10 years, that would be worth more than $100. And so you need to incorporate the fact that benefits and costs accrue in different years. And we do that through discounting and calculating the present value of those costs and benefits, knowing in what year they would occur, looking out into the future. And so this is part of the calculation that is behind the calculator, you're picking a time horizon to consider. And then we're going to estimate when costs and benefits accrue. Calculate that into their present value today and say, does this check out or not, do the benefits exceed the costs?
Sam Sandoval
So what kind of policies or programs might incentivize or disincentivize, the adoption of cover crops in California?
Ellen Bruno
Yeah, that's a great question. I guess starting with incentives at the federal level, which is not something I've studied specifically but I think is worth mentioning, the Federal crop insurance programs do recognize the use of cover crops and provide some incentives for adopting cover crops. In fact, USDA is in its second year of offering a pandemic cover crop program, which entitles many agricultural producers to subsidize crop insurance premiums if they planted cover crops. The premium discount, I believe is $5 an acre. But, you know, as we've discussed, the adoption is still very low, particularly in California, relative to much of the rest of the US. And so there's a role for, say the state government or other policies to further encourage adoption in California.
The other thing I want to mention is that there are other programs or policies that may not be specifically aimed at cover crops or regenerative agricultural practices in general, that can serve as either an incentive or disincentive for cover cropping. Alyssa was discussing how cover cropping is interacting with SGMA and concerns about how that policy might affect or create a disincentive to cover crops. But you could imagine cover cropping being impacted by other policies by considering carbon policy, for example, if farmers could buy carbon offsets for the increased soil carbon storage from cover cropping that could serve as an incentive to cover crop even though it's not a policy that's actually directly geared at cover cropping, right? So any policy that would increase the monetary benefits of cover cropping would serve as an incentive. Likewise, anything that increases the cost might work in the opposite direction and actually be a disincentive for cover cropping.
Faith Kearns
Climate change is obviously on a lot of people's minds right now, in the midst of this drought and a new study about mega drought. And I'm just wondering how y'all are thinking about, or how many of your calculations account for, climate change and cover crops.
Alyssa DeVincentis
I think about this all the time, because my life now is at a startup where we’re planting cover crops and studying cover crops and trying to understand how they fit into climate resiliency, and how the way I think about them, and how I talk to producers about them is that it's kind of like an insurance policy. In case you get a huge deluge of water, in case you get a great big atmospheric river, if you have cover crops growing, they can help get that moisture into the ground and keep it there for longer. But on the other hand, when you have a winter like this, where we had huge rains early on, and now I think maybe over 30 days without precipitation, now you get cover crops that have been planted and paid for, and are probably dying pretty early. And maybe they're not even really getting to the height that they ought to to return the benefit in the form of biomass production.
So unpredictable weather in California is one of the biggest climate change impacts that I think about with cover cropping. Because one of the big takeaways from my interviewing of farmers was that the adoption is really affected by just not knowing, not knowing when the last rain was going to come not knowing if enough water was going to come to feed the cover crop. And those uncertainties are only getting worse, really, the GCM models agree to disagree about the future of California climate. And that means that decisions in the wintertime for farmers are very difficult. When you have so much uncertainty and cover crops are an input, they cost money, time labor, diesel, and the benefits really have to outweigh the costs. And I think in some years, if the climate conditions are just right, then they may not. So it's a real balancing act between long term benefit and short term benefits. And that's really where I see subsidies and federal support and state support making a huge difference.
Mallika Nocco
How can we support you and how can we support the work that you are doing? Whoever would like to answer that question first.
Ellen Bruno
I guess the best way to support, to support me in the work I'm doing is to is to just engage with me on the work that I'm doing. We've discussed a lot so far on water use of cover crops and water issues as they relate to SGMA. And so I'll just mention some briefly some other ongoing work that I have related to SGMA. I've been studying how the impacts of changing water prices impact agriculture. In the Pajaro Valley, which is on the central coast of California, we're finding that an increase in water prices is leading to a reduction in water use, and also decreases in land following, which I think has implications for sustainability of agriculture. I'm also closely following the unfolding of SGMA and tracking which agencies are implementing which policies and why with a particular interest in groundwater markets. So feel free to reach out to me directly if you're interested in following up on any of this work, I would love to engage with you.
Alyssa DeVincentis
The best way to support me is a little different because I've left academia and research, in theory. And since I left grad school, I helped co found a startup that is not all about cover crops, but it's a lot about cover crops. Like I mentioned, I have just been in this world since Sam first dropped me into it. So one of the things we do is promote a new cover crop species, which is called Oakville bluegrass. And if there's a grower out there listening and you're interested in trying out a cover crop, you can contact me on our website. We are right now developing a farmer cooperative that will directly connect growers with the suppliers of the grass seed. And we're really excited about it. It's happening right now. So if you're interested in getting involved in a new farmer cooperative focused on cover cropping, we're looking at perennial cover crops, trying to reduce labor and chemical inputs. And we'll be happy to talk to anyone who's interested in that.
Mallika Nocco
Yeah, that's wonderful. I just want to disagree with Alyssa’s comments about how you're not doing research, because I think you're doing quite a bit of research and you mentioned a research project you're working. And then I should say that Alyssa and myself and Sam are working on a research project, looking at this new cover crop that's called Oakville bluegrass. I wanted to follow up quickly with Ellen as to how we can engage more with your work - are there certain, and this might be an offline conversation, but are there certain things that you want us to plug specifically?
Ellen Bruno
Well, I guess I, you know, looping back to what Sam was saying about interdisciplinary research, my economic, my disciplinary research in economics, has benefited so much by talking with other researchers who approach these issues from a different lens, as well as stakeholders in particular who are experiencing these issues on the ground. I really need both of those components in order to do good disciplinary research and extension work. I don't have anything specific in terms of how to engage in particular but having conversations with different people that have different experiences and different backgrounds is really helpful.