Cornell Nutrient Management Spear Program - NMSP

🎉 NMSP PhD candidate Gurpreet Kaur recently received the Outstanding Teaching Assistant (TA) award! 🍎 This award recognizes excellence as a TA. Gurpreet has been extremely helpful to the students she works with and has consistently done an outstanding job when it comes to supporting their learning 📚 Congratulations, Gurpreet!

🔎Research reveals a three-year payoff when it comes to nitrogen fertilizer savings and corn yield gains from manure🌱

Read more about the tangible yield benefits and fertilizer savings seen by NMSP’s researchers, learn why this research is important and see how the trials were designed in our most recent What’s Cropping Up? article:

https://blogs.cornell.edu/whatscroppingup/2026/06/08/three-year-payoff-nitrogen-fertilizer-savings-and-corn-yield-gains-from-manure-across-three-trials/

Congrats to our recent grads! 🌎 🎓

Sarah Flanagan, Soil Health research assistant, Value of Manure Project: Flanagan recently defended her honors’ thesis that she completed during her time with us and is going on to study agricultural science in graduate school at Penn State 🎉 🏫

Skylar Cooper, Dairy Sustainability Research Assistant: Cooper is starting vet school at St. George University this coming fall 🎊 🏫

Camron Ray, Dairy Sustainability Research Assistant: Camron Ray will be taking a gap year before attending vet school 🎉 🐄

Ashley Ardila, Dairy Sustainability Research Assistant: Ashley Ardila joined our team this past January and will be continuing with us this year 🎊 🐄

Congratulations, graduates, and thanks for being part of the team! 🌎 🎓

Gabriela Garcia interned with our program this spring working on the rainfall simulation project alongside Carlos Irias 🌧️ Now, Garcia plans to continue gaining new knowledge and experience in graduate school and bring those attributes with her back to her country to support the farmers that she grew up surrounded by 🚜

In our latest Cornell CALS article, she reflected on her internship experience, what she learned, and what she’s hoping to bring with her as she embarks on her future endeavors.
Read on ➡️ Gabby Garcia: "We will never stop learning"

Gabby Garcia: “We will never stop learning” Gabby Garcia joined Cornell CALS’ Nutrient Management Spear Program (NMSP) as an intern from Zamorano University hoping to expand upon her knowledge of agriculture. During her time at Cornell, she worked on the rainfall simulation project alongside Carlos Irias.

Research reveals that tiling may boost corn silage, corn grain & soybean yield 🔍 The yield benefits of tiling are well known among farmers, but quantification of yield benefits has been limited in the past 🌽 With increased availability of yield data for New York farms, we can now work towards quantifying the potential yield benefits of tiling 🎉

Read on to learn about what we’ve found so far: https://cals.cornell.edu/news/2026/04/research-reveals-tiling-may-boost-corn-silage-corn-grain-soybean-yield

We are actively looking to recruit more farmers to collaborate with on this project 🤝 If you're a farmer interested in participating in this study, please reach out to Manuel Marcaida ([email protected]) or Quirine Ketterings ([email protected]).

Research reveals tiling may boost corn silage, corn grain & soybean yield Installing artificial drainage in farm fields is an ancient concept that remains relevant today. While its benefits are well-known among farmers, the increasing use of yield monitors means that we now have access to the data necessary to measure those benefits. Cornell researchers are conducting ong...

This Friday🎉Register for our next Lunch with NMSP webinar! 📆 On Friday, May 1st from 12pm-1pm EST, join us during lunch to discuss proper pH management strategies for obtaining high quality, high yielding crops. There will be ample time for questions and discussion. Register for free now: https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/bi0tZE62T92cSk7B-2S8eQ #/registration

🌽 Drained fields, steadier yields? Our most recent What’s Cropping Up? blog post explores corn grain, corn silage and soybean yield and yield variability responses to tile drainage. To learn more about the potential yield benefits of tile drainage, read on ➡️ https://blogs.cornell.edu/whatscroppingup/2026/04/20/drained-fields-steadier-yields-tile-drainage-and-yield-performance-in-new-york-farms/

Project update! In 2025, the Power of Manure project documented that manure outperforms synthetic fertilizer by boosting yields, building weather resilience, and providing multi-year yield benefits.

Check out our most recent What's Cropping Up? blog post to learn more!

https://blogs.cornell.edu/whatscroppingup/2026/04/01/in-a-weather-challenged-season-manure-offset-nitrogen-fertilizer-needs-and-increased-corn-silage-and-grain-yields-value-of-manure-project-2025-update/

📢 Join us this year in the Arts Quad on Cornell's Ithaca campus for the Art of Agriculture celebration tomorrow (Friday 4/17) anytime between 10am and 4pm! We will be showcasing a number of our projects, with precision ag tech like drones and the microBIOMETER available for viewing, stickers to win, and more! 🎉 If you want to learn more about the research we do and our role when it comes to New York ag, feel free to stop by, take a look, and chat with us 🚜

🎉 Our team is honored to be this year's recipient of the CALS Outstanding Accomplishments in Extension/Outreach team award 🏅 This award recognizes those who demonstrate leadership in developing a highly innovative and responsive extension/outreach program tailored to addressing stakeholder needs.

On Monday, this award was commemorated at the 2025-26 CALS Faculty and Staff Awards Celebration, where we had the opportunity to highlight and discuss our achievements with others while celebrating our CALS colleagues and fellow awardees 🎊 We would like to thank all of our past and current team members for their meaningful contributions that led to this accomplishment as well as all of our collaborators and partners who have supported our research, extension and outreach efforts through the years.