Nebraska U to Host National Workshop on Nitrogen Use

The University of Nebraska--Lincoln will host the 2022 Nitrogen Use Efficiency Workshop from Aug. 1-3.

Faculty, graduate students, extension educators and producers are invited to attend "Demystifying Water and Nitrogen Management with Dynamic Solutions," which will take place on Nebraska Innovation Campus and at the Nebraska East Union.

The event is free, but because space is limited, registration is requested of those planning to attend. To learn more and register, visit https://agronomy.unl.edu/nitrogen-use-efficiency-workshop.

Coordinated by the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture and Department of Biological Systems Engineering, the NUE Workshop will offer opportunities to network and exchange innovative ideas regarding nitrogen, which remains a major priority among academia, industry and stakeholders. The workshop will also allow scientists and graduate students to meet and collaborate with industry representatives. In addition, graduate students can compete in a poster presentation competition and a team-based data hackathon.

"Many of the attendees will not be familiar with water management concepts and tools, so we want to feature these," said event coordinator Laila Puntel, assistant professor of agronomy and horticulture. "We want to promote moving forward on nitrogen management. New technologies will be discussed, and active interdisciplinary collaboration will be encouraged."

The themes for the NUE workshop include:

• Using Crop Modeling to Demystify the N Cycle
• Soil Health, NUE Indicators and Biologicals: How Do We Manage N in a C-Centric Era?
• Using Weather Uncertainty to Promote More In-Season N Applications
• N Tool Fusion: Are We Resolving N x Weather Ambiguities and Closing the Gaps?
• Innovations for N Management: A Push Out of the Box -- Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

This year's NUE Workshop Team consists of Puntel; Guillermo Balboa, research assistant professor of agronomy and horticulture; Joe Luck, associate director of the Eastern Nebraska Research, Extension and Education Center, and associate professor of biological systems engineering; James Schepers, professor emeritus of soil and water sciences; and Laura Thompson, associate extension educator. The team has been planning the event for more than a year.

"The upcoming event in Nebraska is unique because it offers the opportunity to highlight the essential role of water management when it comes to nitrogen management decisions," Balboa said. "The goal is to facilitate the discussion around strategies for the effective reduction of nitrogen losses to the environment, critical for the state of Nebraska and beyond."

The team said it hopes the workshop will increase the awareness of existing technologies for nitrogen management, along with the weaknesses and strengths of those tools.

"Collaboration among stakeholders could result in innovative methods to translate science into practice that can be utilized by corn producers in Nebraska," Thompson said.

The annual event launched in 1996 and has since been hosted by many universities across the Corn Belt. Nebraska last hosted the workshop in 2004. Past participants have hailed from Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Australia, Germany and Brazil.

Questions can be directed to Puntel at lpuntel2@unl.edu.