APG is making an impact in Minnesota and beyond. Read on to learn about the Community Plant Breeding Team, Jeffrey Coulter’s work on small stature corn and Kevin Smith’s thoughts on Minnesota’s oat resurgence.

A taste of Africa in Minnesota

On a cool Saturday morning in May, a mix of Hennepin County Master Gardeners and members of the University of Minnesota's Community Plant Breeding Team (CPBT) gathered in a field on the St. Paul campus to plant this year's crops: amaranth, Ethiopian mustard, spiderwisp, African eggplant, red Malabar spinach, okra, and more.

Kelly Bartell, a Master-Gardener-in-training, had never heard of some of the plants she was putting into the ground. The vegetables and herbs that she was tasked with planting are varieties of African vegetables that will make their way to Communities Advancing Prosperity for Immigrants (CAPI) to distribute to African immigrants and refugees in the area, a group eager to obtain culturally relevant food in this northern climate. The Master Gardener program will also give away produce from the garden at IgboFest, a multi-day festival in August hosted by the Umunne Cultural Association.

The CPBT is a student-led project that aims to breed traditional African vegetables that can thrive in Minnesota. The group was initiated in 2021 by APG Professor Rex Bernardo after he read a Minnesota Public Radio story about members of the African diaspora driving hundreds of miles to farmers markets in the Twin Cities to obtain culturally relevant vegetables only to see those vegetables sell out before they could buy any.

Bernardo, director of the University’s Plant Breeding Center, recruited graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to start CPBT. Now in its fifth year, the team’s garden plot has expanded to two areas: a community side and a research side. The plants on the community side will go to CAPI in Brooklyn Center and be shared at IgboFest and at a CPBT open house later this summer. The research side is devoted to research activities and seed production of amaranth, Ethiopian mustard, spiderwisp and jute mallow, explains Frenzee Kroeizha Pammmit, CPBT field and experiment lead.

The four research crops were chosen because they tend to be consumed as fresh vegetables, which makes it difficult for them to be shipped from warmer climates; seeds for these species are not available in the United States; and there is a lack of adapted germplasm or existing breeding programs to meet the demand for these crops.

This spring , the CPBT was given the Inclusive Excellence Impact Award from the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. The award recognizes outstanding individuals or teams working to build a culture of inclusion in the college and that have demonstrated a measurable impact in their efforts to advance a culture of inclusion in research and scholarship, outreach, instruction, curriculum development, policy, campus climate, environment or community.

Bartell, the Master-Gardener-in-training, says her morning spent planting the African crops was “a really cool experience.” She plans to come back this summer to help with weeding. “It’s important work,” she says.

You can read more about the students’ perspectives on their work in a paper published in Crop Science last year at the following link: Lessons from a student-led breeding effort on leafy African vegetables in Minnesota. And stay tuned for announcements on the CBPT open house, tentatively scheduled for August 11.

Advancing nitrogen management for short corn

Short stature corn hybrids have been seen as a promising crop for farmers for some time. The squatter stalks are better able to withstand high winds, farmers can more easily drive equipment through their fields to apply fertilizer or fungicides, and because the corn can be planted more densely, there’s potential for increased yield.

But University of Minnesota Extension agronomist and APG Professor Jeff Coulter says size and the advantages that come with it are only part of the story. He’s looking at how these new hybrids and their larger and deeper root systems access and use nitrogen (N) in hopes that the corn can produce similar or greater yields with a lighter environmental footprint.

With funding from the Minnesota Corn Research and Promotion Council, Coulter is leading a study on this at the University’s Southwest Research and Outreach Center (SROC) at Waseca in collaboration with Jeff Vetsch, researcher and soil scientist at SROC, and Paulo Pagliari and Fabian Fernandez, both Extension nutrient management specialists and professors in the Department of Soil, Water and Climate. Kyle Holling (SROC) and Lee Klossner (SWROC) are helping implement the research at the stations.

“We are evaluating three short-stature corn hybrids and three standard hybrids, each at six different nitrogen (N) fertilizer rates applied preplant,” Coulter explains. “We are measuring leaf tissue nitrogen concentration, grain yield, grain moisture content at harvest, grain yield components, indices of nitrogen- use efficiency and economic net return. The short-stature corn hybrids are planted at a higher planting rate than the standard hybrid.”

“The researchers are trying to determine if short-stature corn hybrids have a lower economic optimum nitrogen rate than the standard hybrids because of their broader, deeper root system. Some trials have found these hybrids have greater recovery efficiency of nitrogen fertilizer compared to standard hybrids,” Coulter says. “Additionally, we want to compare yield and net return of short-stature vs. standard hybrids. The grain yield component measurements will help explain any yield differences.”

If these short-stature corn hybrids can produce similar or greater net return for farmers, coupled with a lighter environmental footprint due to greater recovery efficiency of applied nitrogen fertilizer and possibly a lower nitrogen fertilizer requirement, “that is a win-win scenario,” he says.

Semi-dwarf wheat and rice varieties that were resistant to lodging and diseases were the backbone of the “Green Revolution” in the 1940s–1960s, Coulter says. Other cereals that have been shortened include grain sorghum, barley, rye and pearl millet. Coulter addressed the nutrient needs of short-stature corn, along with other agronomic insights, during the 18th annual Nutrient Management Conference in Mankato, Minnesota, in February. Watch his presentation on YouTube here.

An oat resurgence in Minnesota

When University of Minnesota Extension hosted one of its annual Grain Gatherings in Rochester in February, more than 200 people filled the room to talk about oats.

“The place was packed,” says APG professor and oat breeder Kevin Smith. Growing oats in the southern part of the state is gaining more interest with the help of an oats-only mill slated to open in August. Green Acres Milling, a new farmer-owned $68 million food-grade oat mill based in Albert Lea, expects to process up to 4 million bushels (an estimated 40,000 acres) of oats annually.

Oats were once a major Minnesota crop with nearly 4 million acres planted annually in the first half of the 20th century. Four years ago, oat acreage in the state hit a record low of 77,000 acres harvested, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Up until the 1960s, oats were grown mainly to feed farm animals, Smith explains. The mechanization of farming reduced the need for oats as animal feed, and the economics of producing oats can’t compete with soybean and corn, the two most heavily subsidized crops in the United States.

Now, consumer demand for gluten-free grain and oat milk are spurring a tiny oat renaissance. Green Acres will process only oats in the facility, allowing the mill to stay gluten-free. “A portion of what they bring in will also be organic, so they can do certified organic oats as well,” Smith says.

Mill members are hoping that bringing oat milling closer to home for oat brands like General Mills and Quaker — both headquartered in the Midwest — will pay off. The companies currently source their oats from Canada. “Transportation costs would be considerably less because their infrastructure is in Minnesota and Iowa,” Smith says. “Those companies would see an advantage of sourcing oats if they can get the quality that they are currently getting from Canada.”

More benefits to oats: The crop absorbs excess soil nitrates, preventing the nitrates from leaching into waterways. Adding oats to a corn-soybean rotation helps break pest cycles, reduce disease pressure and curb resistant weeds.

Smith is talking with oat growers about the University’s breeding program and things happening here that could help support additional oat production in

southern Minnesota. The recently released ‘MN-Amber’ has characteristics that are fit for the human food market: higher protein, high beta glucan content, high test weight. And it has moderate crown rust resistance and excellent smut resistance, which fits the needs of the food-grade oat industry. Smith’s lab is also working on standability, lodging resistance and height.

“The breeding lines that we’re producing are shorter and have better straw strength,” characteristics that Amber has, he says. “But there are other things in our breeding program that will even be shorter and better at straw strength.” Those varieties will be coming through the program in about two or three years.

Amber is the second variety released since the reboot of the University’s oat breeding program in 2015. The first release was ‘MN-Pearl’ in 2019, which traced back to a collaborative breeding effort between the University and the Crop Development Centre in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Detailed performance data and comparisons of previously released varieties can be found at varietytrials.umn.edu.

—Kristal Leebrick