Roots in Research CMREC - Beltsville Facility - Yield Year 2024
Updated: June 12, 2025
Roots in Research Newsletter
CMREC - Beltsville Facility - Yield Year 2024
After a good year for small grains, the 2024 crop year was a good reminder of the value of crop insurance for the CMREC-Beltsville facility. With prolonged drought conditions through most of the growing season, average yields for corn and soybeans were numbers we hope to never see again. Mirroring the ups and downs of the growing season, we had a fair amount of staff turnover at the facility this year as well. We welcomed in two new Ag Tech Leads: Richard “Trey” Whelton III and Jacob Rasmussen. Within the same year we also bid farewell to Jacob, who now works in DC promoting food accessibility at farmers markets, and Chris Athey, who now works at the WMREC facility. Some of the highlights for this year include the cover crop management field day, held in early May, and the farm manager, Kevin Conover, being recognized for 40 years of service at the AGNR awards ceremony on campus.
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Alan Leslie MAES Center Director WMREC | CMREC | LESREC Download PDF
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The Honey Bee Lab at the University of Maryland has diverse personnel with multidisciplinary scientific backgrounds who bring a fresh perspective to solving problems. Research in the laboratory is focused on an epidemiological approach to honey bee health. We are proud to share our research into the major mechanisms that are responsible for recurring high loss levels in honey bee populations, such as pests and pathogens associated with honey bees, loss of natural forage habitat due to large monocultural croplands, and pressure from human induced changes in the environment.
Fundamentals of Soil Science Course - Catena in the Field
Eni Baballari - Environmental Science and Technology, UMD
Every semester, students of ENST200, Fundamentals of Soil Science, take the drive to the Central Maryland Research and Education Center (CMREC) - Beltsville Facility to study soils in the field. During this field trip, curious students of soils use augers to dig deep into the many layers of soil, called horizons. They get soil from four different locations, representative of the local topography. They deposit their diggings into a trough and come together with their soil troughs from four locations to see them side-by-side and discuss differences between them. They talk about the 5 soil formation factors (parent material, climate, organisms, topography, and time) and how each of these has influenced the local soil. Importantly, they also talk about the influence that soil properties have on the land use capabilities, such as farming or installation of a septic tank field. Students love this trip and we look forward to continuing to showcase the wonder of soil! Photo: Teacher and students pose for a photo with their soil profiles in white troughs in front of them.
For most people, turf grasses, especially the cool season grasses look almost identical. Narrow green leaves from eye level all look the same but once you see and pay attention to some key details it becomes easy to identify from a distance what grass is growing. The goal of this project is to have in one area of the farm a demonstration plot of the five most common cool season turf grasses. This includes Perennial Ryegrass, Turf-type Tall Fescue, K31 Tall Fescue, Kentucky Bluegrass, and Hard Fescue. This set of cool season grasses allow for the visual and physical comparison between cool season grasses. The key characteristics demonstrated by this plot are the color, texture, growth habits and physiological leaf and stem differences taught to students in class. The condensed nature of the plot with five rows of grass allows for a side by side comparison between these five types of grasses to re-enforce topics learned during lectures or labs held at the farm. This demonstration plot follows our standard cool season grass maintenance protocol. Fertilize at .9lbs of Nitrogen per 1k sq ft and apply pre emergent in the spring, mow at 3 inches during the growing season and apply fungicides, post emergent herbicides and insecticides as needed, irrigate when signs of heat and drought stress occur.
On a cloudy Thursday in early May, the Beltsville facility welcomed around 35 visitors attending the “Planting Green Workshop,” which was a field day event demonstrating different cover crop management practices. The event was organized by Dr. Ray Weil, and was supported by several partner agencies, including Northeast SARE, NRCS, the MD Soybean Board, Future Harvest, and the Million Acre Challenge. The workshop highlighted some of the ongoing research that the Weil lab is conducting in cover crop management, especially delaying termination to increase biomass. There was a soil pit, where Dr. Weil discussed the effects that different cover crops have on soil health and the movement of water and nutrients through the soil profile. There was also a demonstration of planting green in standing, dense cover crops, and a discussion of the multiple benefits that this strategy can provide. Attendees left with a deeper understanding of the multiple benefits that cover crops provide, and tools for better managing cover crops on their farms.
Growing healthy turf grass starts with building the foundation of meeting nutrient requirements. Having enough nitrogen throughout the growing season though traditional application methods such as sprayable urea or spreadable fertilizer can often result in excessive applications with spikes and dips of plant available nitrogen. But results of having nitrogen in any form from any type of application is very noticeable from a darker color disease resistance and an overall healthier stand of noticeable from a darker color disease resistance and an overall healthier stand of preventing weeds from competing and choking out the grass. The idea with micro clover is to introduce a legume in the turf grass stand which will provide a steady release of year round nitrogen to reduce and remove unnecessary inputs including fertilizers and post emergent herbicides, while also being aesthetically pleasing as the smaller leaves of the micro clover as to not impact the texture of the grass in a lawn setting. This plot is a demonstration and proof of concept that with the right prep work to establish micro clover with a cool season turf grass the elimination of excessive inputs can be possible in a home lawn or field type setting.
Spring Termination of Cover Crops - How Timing Affects Crop Stands and Yields
Ray Weil and Cassandra Gabalis Department of Environmental Science and Technology
Figure 1. Average monthly and 2024 daily cumulative precipitation (mm) at CMREC
Summer 2024 saw extreme drought conditions in Maryland, including at the Central Maryland Research and Education Center (CMREC) farm in Beltsville, MD. May rainfall was about normal, but the following summer months had almost no rain at all (Figure 1). With the severe drought, the cover crops had a clear effect on conserving summer soil moisture, and the use of winter cover crops affected corn and soybean yields.
Soybean yields were determined by hand-harvesting. Averaged across in both sandy loam and silty clay loam soils (fields 39A and 7E) and all termination timings, soybean yields in plots with a preceding rye cover crop were significantly higher than in plots with a preceding cover crop clover-rye-radish mixture (Figure 2, left). Looking more deeply into this data, we see that the depressing effect of the clover-rye-radish MIX cover crop did not occur for the mid-termination (planting green and terminating at the same time in early May). Termination timing did not affect soybean yields for the no cover (weeds only) or rye cover treatments.
Figure 2. Soybean yields on two soils at CMREC benefited in 2024 from being planted into a rye cover crop. Early and late (but not mid-planting green) termination of clover-rye mix reduced stands and subsequent yields.
Sweet Corn Sentinel Monitoring Network: 2024 Results and Trends with Previous Years
Galen P. Dively, Department of Entomology, University of Maryland
Collaborators: Terry Patton, Kristian Holmstrom, David Owens, Michael Crossley, Helene Doughty, Sean Malone, Tim Bryant, Kemper Sutton, Tom Kuhar, Daniel Gilrein, Heather Grab, Timothy Elkner, Jared Dyer, Brian Nault, John Mahas, Kelsey Fisher, Jocelyn Smith, Caitlin Congdon, Holly Byker, Julien Saquez, Jason Wells, Kelley Tilmon, Chris DiFonzo, Amy Raudenbush, Fei Yang, Genevieve Higgins, Heather Darby, Robert Wright, Craig Abel, Decker Ashley Lynn, Christian Krupke, Nicholas Seiter, Bradley McManus, Dominic Reisig, Steven Roberson, Anders Huseth, Francis Reayjones, Tom Bilbo, Whitney Crow, Dave Buntin, Huang Fangneng, Pat Porter, Dalton Ludwick, Yves Carriere, Kelly Hamby
Introduction and Background
Earworm on sweet corn
Sweet corn sentinel monitoring has been conducted annually since 2017 to track changes in corn earworm (CEW) susceptibility to Cry and Vip3A toxins expressed in Bt corn and cotton. Each year, Syngenta and Bayer-Seminis provide sweet corn seed that is repackaged and distributed to volunteer collaborators to establish sentinel plantings of non-Bt and Bt hybrids. All collaborators use the same planting and data collection protocol to generate metrics showing differences in control efficacy between Bt and non-Bt plots. To estimate the allele frequencies for CEW resistance to each Bt toxin, the phenotypic frequency of resistance (PFR) is calculated as the ratio of larval density in Bt ears relative to the density in non-Bt ears. Using this approach, a significant reduction in control efficacy coupled with an increased PFR is viewed as a genetically-based change in CEW susceptibility and confirmation of field-evolved resistance. In 2024, the objective was to continue monitoring for changes in resistance development to the Bt toxins, with greater emphasis on the Vip3A toxin and better timing of larger ear samples to detect early signs of resistance. This report summarizes the 2024 results and trends with previous years.
Overall monitoring network results
The 2024 network involved 56 sentinel plantings in 28 states (TX, LA, FL, MS, AZ, MS, GA, MO, SC, NC, VA, MD, DE, PA, NJ, NY, CT, MA, VT, OH, IN, IA, IL, NE, SD, KS, WI, MN, MI) and 4 Canadian provinces (ON, QC, NS, NB). Collaborators in CT, MD, VA, MN, SC, GA, TX and ON established multiple plantings at different times and/or locations. Read more>>
