Multifunctional Buffers on Marginal Farmland to Improve the Environmental Profile of Agriculture and Diversify Production Opportunities.

The Multifunctional Buffers research program focuses on opportunities to establish and evaluate different multifunctional perennial systems appropriate for marginal or sensitive areas on Illinois farms. These buffers include monocultures and polycultures of perennial bioenergy crops, forages, shrubs producing fruits or floral cuttings, and corn/soy rotation with cover crops. From the treatments, we are evaluating the environmental benefits related to nitrogen recovery based on analysis of soil nutrients over time, subsurface leaching of nutrients, and abundance of specific soil microorganisms. This experiment is creative and original in developing solutions for farmers that could be both productive and environmentally beneficial. In addition to recovering nutrients that pollute water resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, multifunctional buffer systems could diversify the landscape and the income stream for Illinois farmers, offering a win-win situation for both farmers and the public at-large.