Speaker – Mallika Nocco, Assistant Professor in Biological Systems Engineering and Extension Specialist in Agrohydrology, UW-Madison
We produce fruits, nuts, and vegetables under increasingly erratic temperature and water availability. Irrigated landscapes can also feedback on regional climate, water, and soils. Farmers are incentivized by policies, public perception, and conservation ethics to enhance irrigation and energy efficiency as well as optimize soil function. The future of implementing and evaluating conservation irrigation practices is in in high-resolution monitoring and management of soil-plant-water relations across space and time. Dr. Nocco will present applied research from her group evaluating conservation irrigation practices, mechanisms, and tradeoffs important to understand how we might increase specialty crop system resilience to drought, heat waves, and floods in a changing climate.