USDA awards $946,349 to Michigan State University for alfalfa research

The United States Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture program has awarded nearly $950,000 to a Michigan State University-led research project that will look into alfalfa autotoxicity per the Alfalfa Seed and Forage Systems program of NIFA.

Alfalfa is an extremely valuable crop in the United States; according to the USDA, it’s the third most valuable. It is mainly grown for animal agriculture despite the fact that it has many other uses. As a very strong and resilient crop, the most damaging thing alfalfa faces is itself and its autotoxicity, which means that the plant keeps itself from germinating and developing seedlings. The researchers on this project are going to take a look into what chemical compound within the plant causes this phenomenon.

According to an article on Michigan State University’s website, project lead Kim Cassida, associate professor in the MSU Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, said of alfalfa’s autotoxicity, “We’ve known about this issue for a long time, but there haven’t been any concrete solutions generated. Alfalfa is a tremendously valuable crop for Michigan, the U.S. and beyond, so finding answers to the problem of autotoxicity is extremely important. In my role as an MSU Extension specialist, I work directly with farmers, and I want to be able to give them more prescriptive recommendations.”

The team, which also includes associate professor in the Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences Sarah Lebeis, Virginia Moore, who is an assistant professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University, and Paige Baisley, who is a graduate student at MSU, has four primary goals within this project.

First, the team hopes to identify what exactly it is that causes alfalfa plants to resort to autotoxicity. Following figuring out that important piece of the puzzle, the team will study root function and soil microbiology as it relates to autotoxicity. Then, the team will work to breed new varieties of alfalfa that aren’t affected by autotoxicity. Finally, they will communicate their findings to growers through MSU Extension education.

“We need to do greenhouse work to identify the mechanisms of autotoxicity before we can take this to field scale. Once we do that, we can start to examine things like the effects of nutrient stresses in test plots. The bioassay gives us the ability to definitively identify research plots or production fields that exhibit the problem and focus on differences between those and non-toxic plots or fields. This should improve our ability to conclusively identify causal compounds and interactions among environmental or management factors that impact the severity of the problem,” said Cassida.

In addition to this research potentially solving the problem of autotoxicity in alfalfa, the findings may be able to be applied in the future to other types of plants that have autotoxicity problems.

Currently, in advising and helping growers through her work as an MSU Extension specialist, Cassida says that she tries to help growers of alfalfa find ways to manage their crop without knowing the root cause of autotoxicity, which often can lead to frustration. Her advice is to rotate other crops before replanting alfalfa, but this doesn’t always work.

“To bring more certainty into the fold, we are developing a soil bioassay that will eventually be available through MSU Plant & Pest Diagnostics that can let a grower know whether the soil is ready to plant alfalfa again. At this point, we still can’t tell them exactly how long it will take their field to recover if it’s not ready, but we’re looking to improve the bioassay through this work,” said Cassida. 

For more information about Michigan State University, visit the school’s website.