Newly published research by Alejandro Plastina, assistant professor, examines converting underperforming areas in Iowa crop fields to switchgrass, which could help farmers decrease costs while potentially providing an economic benefit from a future bioenergy crop market.
An article about the project appeared recently in GCB Bioenergy (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/13652486), an international journal that publishes research about biological and environmental sciences and the production of fuels from plants, algae and waste. Emily Heaton, an associate professor of agronomy; Alejandro Plastina and Elke Brandes, a postdoctoral researcher in agronomy at the time of the study, were the authors of the paper titled: Where can switchgrass production be more profitable than corn and soybean? An integrated subfield assessment in Iowa, USA.
This and other studies on the economics of conservation practices in Iowa are available at: https://www.card.iastate.edu/conservation/