PhD/MSc (Hort&Agronomy/IAD), NSF Fellow, Plant Science GSR award
Impact of cropping system complexity on drought resilience and soil-plant-water relations
Email: llrenwick@ucdavis.edu
Education
- PhD/MSc Candidate– Horticulture and Agronomy, International Agricultural Development (University of California, Davis, Fall 2015)
- BA– Spanish, Conservation and Resource Studies Minor (Agroecology) (University of California, Berkeley, 2014)
Research Interests
I currently study how strategies to ecologically intensify agriculture affect cropping system resilience. I investigate how crop rotation complexity and no-till increase drought resilience in North American corn-soy systems, how soil health building management practices in organic farms increase resilience to deficit irrigation in California processing tomato, and whether intercropping maize with pigeonpea and gliricidia benefits drought resilience in semiarid central Tanzania. These projects include field and lab measurements of plant ecophysiology, soil-plant-water relations and soil health and draw on collaborations with researchers and farmers at long- and medium-term trials and on-farm sites. My goal is to conduct research which serves as a tool to help practitioners and decision makers build productive, resource use efficient, resilient and healthy agroecosystems.