Dr. Yoana Newman and her team of students presented at the national forage bowl. Jace Heimann is a senior crop science major, Hannah Schull is a sophomore, Tucker Lundquist will be a senior, and Ryan Botema is a soil science major. The Forage Bowl is part of a national conference held in 2024 in Mobile AL. The group is the American Forage & Grassland Council, which includes 22 affiliate councils and more than 2500 members.
Forages are plants or parts of plants other than separated grain eaten by herbivores, both livestock and wildlife. Main uses are pasture, hay, haylage/baleage, and sileage. Forage can also be used as cover crops. Forages have a role in handling runoffs and the like. Benefits to society include wildlife habitat, livestock production, pollinators, conservation, and use as cover crops. Pollinators are important to alfalfa production.
Forages clean air, control erosion, filter water, fix nitrogen (legumes), and provide wildlife habitat, and they help reduce need for fertilizer. The annual conference is a place for students to network with students and faculty, meet with industry leaders, learn about career opportunities. One of the students said that they got to hear from grad students in the field.
UWRF competed against five other schools in the Forage Bowl, which is similar Jeopardy: Purdue, Kansas State, Fort Hays State, and Auburn Universities. And for the fourth year running, UWRF came away with first place. The UWRF team also placed first in the live plant identification competition. Working from memory of plants they’ve studied, “players” have to look at and identify a range of plants from many different environments. Dr. Newman did say that her students benefit from access to the plants she brought from Florida when she came north to UWRF.
Yoana told us that the team had time for fun in addition to the academic and competitive aspects of their conference attendance, including visiting Mobile’s historic district. They learned a lot about Mobile, including that it is the home of the first Mardi Gras in the US. They also learned about the history of Mobile and its French, Spanish, British, and American heritage.
About the speaker and her team: Dr. Yoana Newman is an associate professor in the Plant and Earth Science (PES) department at UWRF. She has been at UWRF since 2015, teaching Plant and Forage related courses, including a study abroad course in tropical agriculture. This is the 4th year in a row that a team from UWRF has won first place competing against big name schools. The team this year included Ryan Botema, Jace Heimann, Tucker Lundquist, and Hannah Schull, all students in PES.