Rapid Agricultural Response Fund

A native North American moth commonly found in forested areas, the soybean tentiform leafminer has expanded its diet. The insect was first sighted in Canadian soybean fields in 2016. Robert Koch, University of Minnesota Extension Entomologist, identified the soybean tentiform leafminer in Minnesota in 2021. And now it has also been found in North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska soybeans. 

“The soybean tentiform leafminer is a tiny moth whose larvae, or caterpillars, live inside and feed on soybean leaves,” explains Koch. “Through their feeding, the caterpillars are hollowing out, or mining, the leaf tissue and then those tissues die, reducing the plant’s ability for photosynthesis. A single caterpillar doesn’t destroy a large area within a plant, but over a season, the damage will add up from numerous caterpillars and multiple generations of the moth.”

Koch and Extension Educator Angie Peltier are evaluating the magnitude of the soybean tentiform leafminer threat and control methods in a project supported by the Rapid Agricultural Response Fund. Learn more about this research in this Soybean Research & Information Network story.

The Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station (MAES) at the University of Minnesota has awarded approximately $2 million from the Rapid Agricultural Response Fund (RARF) to 10 research projects that will help protect Minnesota’s agricultural sector from current and emerging threats. 

The newly-awarded RARF projects span issues across the state's agriculture industries, including responding to the crop pest European corn borer and the potato fungal disease verticullium wilt, assessing if fertilizers are contributing to nitrate in groundwater challenges, improving the utilization of high oleic soybeans as livestock feed, and preventing the spread of noxious weeds through manure.

Researchers in the College of Veterinary Medicine are using tech to help farmers improve herd management. Learn more about this research funded by the Rapid Agricultural Response Fund

MAES has awarded $135,000 from the Rapid Agricultural Response Fund (RARF) to support two research projects in response to recent outbreaks of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in livestock. 

Led by multidisciplinary teams from the College of Veterinary Medicine and the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, along with Extension specialists, the projects are investigating how H5N1 influenza A virus spreads among livestock and potentially into poultry and  the time required for dairy herds to produce virus-free milk, restore milk production levels, and eliminate H5N1.

University of Minnesota students conducted crucial genome sequencing for the newly discovered soybean gall midge — a pest that is threatening the soybean crop, one of the most widely cultivated and consumed throughout the world. This small fly has been found in major soybean-producing states in the Midwest, including Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Missouri. 

In the age of herbicide resistant weeds, the herbicide dicamba is a useful tool to Minnesota soybean farmers. With support from Minnesota’s Rapid Agricultural Response Fund, CFANS Professor Tim Griffis and his team have been conducting research to better measure and understand how dicamba moves across the landscape. Learn how that research has led to the development of best practices and guided state regulations.

With funding from the MAES Rapid Agricultural Response Fund, University of Minnesota researchers at the Minnesota Center for Prion Research (MNPRO) have developed a novel approach to field testing chronic wasting disease (CWD). The team confirmed their findings in southeast Minnesota the week of March 8, 2021, making them the first-ever scientists to successfully deploy a CWD field test. Read more about this research discovery.