Project director Jay Norton, an assistant professor in the Department of Renewable
Resources in UW's College of Agriculture.
A $500,000, four-year research project by the University of Wyoming will investigate the economic and environmental sustainability of three production approaches in cash crop and beef calf production.
The research, starting next spring, will examine conventional, reduced input and organic approaches on small- and medium-sized crop-range-livestock operations. Funding is through the U.S. Department of Agriculture-National Research Initiative Agricultural Prosperity for Small and Medium-Sized Farms program.
The project will include research plots at the James C. Hageman Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension Center (SAREC) near Lingle and eventually on several farms.
"Producers seeking alterative practices to decrease costs or increase value need region-specific information for the cold, dry, irrigated cropping and livestock production systems of the western U.S.," said project director Jay Norton, an assistant professor in the Department of Renewable Resources in UW's College of Agriculture.
The project will include 19 principal investigators in several departments in the college, three collaborators, area growers and two graduate students. A full-time project coordinator will be hired and stationed at SAREC. The person will be directed by Norton and Jim Krall, research director at SAREC.
