Dev Sagar Shrestha

Like it or not, Energy and Agriculture are the two most contributors to greenhouse gas. We need to make sure that new fuels we develop and the future methods of agriculture is sustainable and does good for the environment.

My research in environmental life cycle analysis analyzes both the food production system, including production agriculture and fuel production system. Further, we look deeper into arguments such as Food vs. Fuel issue and Indirect Land-Use Change issues that biofuel may potentially cause.

Degrading environment, especially caused by global warming is one of the biggest challenges the world is facing today and will remain a significant problem in the foreseeable future. The goal is to move towards a sustainable source of energy and agriculture without compromising with the lifestyle or the environment.

Precision agriculture (PA) is a site specific crop management (SSCM) concept based on observing, measuring and responding to inter and intra-field variability in crops.

Precision agriculture is particularly beneficial when significant variation exists within a field. The higher the field variability, the higher the potential savings. The Palouse area of the Pacific Northwest, which spans from southeastern Washington to west-central Idaho (Figure 1), consists of over 2 million acres of rolling hill agricultural land. Because of its immense variation, the winter wheat yield in a typical Palouse field varies from as low as 5 bushels/acre to as high as 110 bushels/acre, making the Palouse a prime candidate for applications of precision agriculture. The rolling hills of Palouse surround the University of Idaho, and hence the institution is at the best location for the precision agriculture research.

My research focus on two areas of precision agriculture for the Palouse. The use of biochar to improve the moisture distribution, and the real time detection of weeds from a drone for spot spray application.