The Rodale Institute researches and promotes composting to help people improve our soils, grow healthier crops, conserve resources, increase efficiency and protect our environment.
Partners continue to be very important to our composting programs.
Two prominent partners that cooperate on many aspects of the programs are the United States Department of Agriculture and the Pennsylvania State University. Compost Utilization Trials Previous research that we conducted on compost pointed out both potential benefits and problems with using compost for field crop production, and raised many unanswered questions. Therefore, we initiated in 1991 a long term field trial comparing multiple composts to each other as well as to more conventional fertility systems. We are monitoring crop nutrient uptake, nutrient movement through the soil, crop yield, food quality and other potential compost effects on soil and crop health through three-year rotations of corn, small grains and vegetables. The compost production component occurs both at our research center and in conjunction with cooperating regional farmers.