The National Science Foundation awarded $4 million dollars to several state colleges for a new collaborative research partnership.
Its goal – developing cheaper and more environmentally friendly fertilizers.
The Center for Climate-Conscious Agricultural Technologies is a research partnership between SDSU, the School of Mines, Sitting Bull College, and North Dakota State University.
SDSU is leading the partnership.
The center will research sustainable agriculture technologies. Researchers will focus on developing microbial biofertilizers. These could provide benefits over traditional synthetic fertilizers.
Synthetic fertilizers have been found to have negative human and environmental impacts and have become expensive. The center hopes to develop a cheaper, sustainable, purpose driven biofertilizer by adding microbes aimed at South Dakota’s prevailing crop, corn.
Prasoon Diwakar is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at South Dakota Mines and a Co-Principal Investigator on the project. He said it takes a large collaboration of scientists to get this research done.
Source: sdpb.org
Photo Credit: istock-nastco
Categories: South Dakota, Education