We are pleased to announce that Dr. Emma Grace Matcham will be joining The Ohio State University Department of Horticulture and Crop Science in January 2025 as an Assistant Professor and Forage Specialist! Dr. Matcham shared, "OSU Extension is where my career started with an undergrad internship nearly 10 years ago, and I am so excited to return as an Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist." Department Chair, Dr. Doug Karcher, summed up our excitement, “I was elated when Dr. Matcham accepted our offer to join the HCS faculty. Several faculty and staff had indicated what a great team player and skilled scientist Emma was as a graduate student in this department a few years ago. And, she has already established a highly reputable career as a faculty member in her current role, establishing extension programs, securing grant funding, graduating students, and publishing scientific papers. She is also highly skilled in modern statistical analysis methods, which will benefit HCS broadly. She will be a great asset to this department.”
Currently, Dr. Matcham is an Assistant Professor in the Agronomy Department at the University of Florida. Among her current academic interests are investigating nutrient cycling for sustainable production of forages and other agronomic crops.
Dr. Matcham received her Ph.D. in Agronomy at the University of Wisconsin - her Dissertation focused on "A Big Data Approach to Evaluating Soil Test Potassium Critical Levels for Soybean" (2022). Prior to pursuing her Ph.D., Dr. Matcham received her M.S. (Thesis: Identifying Soil and Terrain Attributes that Predict Changes in Local Ideal Seeding Rate for Soybean - 2019) and B.S. (Forest Ecosystems Management - 2016) here at The Ohio State University.
Some core areas Dr. Matcham plans to focus on at Ohio State
- Research
- Establishing an applied research program in integrated forage systems. Research areas may include but are not limited to alfalfa management and development, hay production for all livestock classes, ensiled forages, soil health & forage relationships, annual forage crops within crop rotation systems, cover crops as feedstock and grazing, perennial forages & soil and water quality, or carbon sequestration within forage systems.
- Extension
- Providing statewide, regional, and national leadership that supports and strengthens the work of the Ohio State University Agronomic Crops Team, livestock teams, and forage team in developing and disseminating current science-based information and technologies aimed at improving agronomic crop production systems.
- Interacting with producers, industry representatives, and producer organizations and agencies to facilitate technology transfer and adoption of recommended practices.
Forage (corn silage, grass cover crops, grazed pastures, alfalfa, meadow hay, etc.) is among the largest land use in Ohio with an estimated 4.7 million acres and we could not be happier to bring Dr. Matcham on board as an Assistant Professor and Forage Specialist! Fortunately, she had a minute to give us a glimpse into her thoughts...
What are you most looking forward to about this next step in your career?
I think what I'm most excited for is serving Ohio farmers and working with OSU students to develop their crop management and data interpretation skills, since students are the future of our agricultural workforce.
How does it feel to be coming back to your alma matter?
I have learned and grown so much since leaving OSU, and one of the best parts is seeing how much has changed in HCS over the past 5 years as well. I'm excited about new leadership in HCS and OSU Extension more broadly, and all the wonderful colleagues. So far, it's been a good mix of familiar faces and new folks I'm looking forward to working with. I'm also really excited about the curriculum changes, and knowing the quality of HCS education has made recruiting potential graduate students really energizing for me.
What are some of your initial plans for your 1st year with HCS?
The first research trial I have planned for Ohio is looking at winter annual forages, including cereal rye. This trial will help us identify nitrogen rates and harvest timings that maximize nutritive value and yield, and we'll follow the cereal rye plots with soybean to determine the impacts of adding winter forage production into existing row-crop systems.
I'm also looking into options for establishing some alfalfa pest management trials, and I've been talking to county educators about their needs on grazing management research and extension programming. I've also been invited to speak at the Ohio Forage and Grazing Council meeting in February, which will be my first statewide event after starting at OSU in January.
What initially sparked your interest in forage?
My earliest memories of forages are from my uncle's dairy farm in Lorain Co, but I didn't have much professional interest in forage until grad school when I learned about how nutrient management impacts protein development in crops. As I learned more about nutrient management in the context of row crop nutrient demand and manure management for animal production, plus the economics and labor concerns facing 21st century agriculture, I realized that forage systems combine so many of my interests.
I started doing research on nutrient management and establishment for different forage grasses during my time in Florida, and it's been just as engaging and rewarding as I hoped. Last year we started doing some research on ensiling characteristics with silage corn, too, and I'm excited to develop more trials that link forage crops, their post-harvest processing, and animal performance.
What have been a few highlights of your career so far?
The lines that stand out on my CV are winning the short publication category of the Extension and Outreach Materials Awards at the American Society of Agronomy for a factsheet about foliar fertilizers in 2023.
I am the 2024 outreach committee chair for Science for Success, a national working group of extension soybean agronomists funded by the United Soybean Board/ soybean checkoff funds (Laura Lindsey is their research committee chair).
I'm also really proud of becoming a Certified Crop Adviser.
There are a lot of metrics we all keep track of to measure program success in extension, but the one that means the most to me is what I jokingly refer to as my "repeat offender" count-- this is the number of farmers who have invited me back to do on-farm research after our initial trial is completed and the number of extension meetings that have invited me back for a repeat presentation. It's one thing to be invited somewhere, but another thing for folks to get enough value from a research collaboration or presentation that they invite me back.
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?
I enjoy riding my bike, knitting, and reading (especially sci-fi).
Closing thoughts...
I never thought I'd say this before moving to Florida, but honestly, I miss mud so much. You have no idea how weird it is to have 5 inches of rain in a weekend and get no mud. Unnatural. (ask me again in March though, because I reserve the right to be over it by then).
We’re elated Dr. Matcham has decided to return to her roots here in Ohio’s thriving scientific community and hope you'll join us in welcoming her