Cover Crop Event Brings Together Farmers And Cattle Operators

Jul 20, 2017

Figure 1. An August 9 Nebraska Extension event offers a chance for cattle and cover crop producers to learn and network about potential opportunities.

Farmers and livestock feeders interested in growing and using cover crops can learn and network with each other at an event Wednesday, August 9, during the Lancaster County Super Fair.

“Opportunities for Growing and Grazing Cover Crops” will be held from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Lancaster Event Center, 84th & Havelock in Lincoln, in the Exhibit Hall next to Pavilion 3. The event is free but pre-registration is required by Friday, August 4 at lancaster.unl.edu/ag/covercrops or calling 402-441-7180.

Nebraska Extension, Lancaster County Farm Bureau, the Nebraska Corn Board and North Central SARE have teamed up to provide this unique opportunity for cover crop growers and cattle operators. Lunch will be provided.

The day will feature a trade show, speakers from both public and private organizations, and first-hand insight from producers using cover crops in Nebraska.

Presentations will include:

Making Cover Crops Work: Advice from Nebraska Producers, a video during registration
What Every Farmer Needs to Understand About Soil Health — Jacob Ness, Soil Health Partnership
Opportunities for Incorporating Cover Crops and Grazing into Cropping Systems — Daren Redfearn, Nebraska Extension forage specialist
Impacts of Cattle on Cropland — Mary Drewnoski, Nebraska Extension beef systems specialist
Integrated Crop-Cattle Production: One Farmer’s Journey — Mike Buis, Chatham, Ontario, Canada
Pricing Cover Crop Grazing and Developing Rental Agreements — Jay Parsons, UNL Agricultural Economics Professor
Partnering for Profit: Producer Panel on Keys to Successful Farmer-Cattlemen Partnerships — panel members include Chad Dane, Gary Bader, Burdette Piening, Rodney Wiese, Mike Buis

There also will be opportunities for participants to visit a trade show and network with producers and agribusiness. A reception will follow the event.

Source: msu.edu

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”