Boundless Science: Biological Scientist, Zoe Stroobosscher

Join Christine Westenhaver as she talks to a biological scientist at the Indian River Research and Education Center in Fort Pierce, Florida. In this podcast, we discussed the work of the Guzman SMART Irrigation and Hydrology Lab, and the work Zoe does there. 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Christine Westenhaver: 

Welcome back to the podcast series boundless science brought to you by streaming science, a student driven program that works to connect you with scientists to learn how science impacts all of us in our everyday lives and interests. I'm Christine Westenhaver, a fourth-year agricultural education and communication student at the University of Florida and I'm your host. Joining us today is Zoe Stroobosscher, a biological scientist at the University of Florida's Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences, Indian River Research and Education Center in Fort Pierce, Florida. So we worked in the lab, the field and with our stakeholders towards a more sustainable way for natural resources and agriculture to coexist. Throughout this podcast, I hope you learn more about Zoey and gain insight into the labs work.

Christine Westenhaver  

So why don't we just start off and tell us a little bit about yourself and your position at the Indian River Research and Education Center?

Zoe Stroobosscher   

Yeah, of course. Yes, my name is Zoey structure. And I am a biological scientist at the Indian River Research and Education Center, specifically part of the smart irrigation and hydrology lab. And so, a little bit about what it means to be a biological scientist. So, I help manage and facilitate a lot of the research projects that students and postdocs are working on part of our lab as well as assisting in ongoing research. But in addition, I'm also have the ability to kind of work on some other research projects on my own as well. So, it's a nice combination of assisting and managing and helping keeping a lot of research projects going as well as able to do some of my own writing and project design as well.

Christine Westenhaver

For those of us who have never heard of it before. Can you tell us what the UF IFAS in the river Research and Education Center is?

Zoe Stroobosscher 

Yeah, so we are a Research and Education Center in Fort Pierce, Florida. And so, it has a number of kinds of off campus research centers all around Florida, that kind of its different perspectives of the areas essentially. And so, at the Indian River Research and Education Center, we have a diverse group of research researchers here. So, we have everything from plant pathology labs to you know, ag engineering labs to route biology, like all over soil science, soil water sciences, we have kind of a handle on a lot of different areas. That all goes on in one Research Center, which is unique because it allows us to collaborate really well where while I'm not an expert say in our culture, I have a lot of brilliant horticultural scientists just across the hall. So, it's a really fun way to collaborate with lots of different disciplines, but also to be in the field where we're surrounded by lots of different ag industries. But in our particular location in Fort Pierce, we're also backed right up alongside a lot of developing residential industry. You know, we have the freshwater systems, we have marine water systems. So specifically at the Indian River Research and Education Center, we have an interesting crossroads between agriculture, urban, you know, we have an entomology lab right here as well, that gives you different perspective on invasive species. And so, it's a fun, interdisciplinary research center to be part of,

Christine Westenhaver 

How did you like get into this role? And like, what did you do to be in this position?

Zoe Stroobosscher 

Yeah, for sure. So, I went to school and got my biochemistry degree in Michigan, and right after that I was hired at a nonprofit and doing some research in ocean research and conservation. And specifically, my role there was kind of tracking pollutants in water and kind of making these water quality maps around the Indian River Lagoon and the St. Lucie rivers to kind of identify hotspots of where water quality is at the lowest and at the highest in these areas. And so, after that, I was looking to move to a kind of a different role and saw that the smart irrigation and hydrology lab was looking for a biological scientist. And so, I applied there, and it was a really nice connection because a lot of the work that I was doing at the Ocean Research and Conservation Association, a lot of what we're finding is need for improvement of water quality in some of the agricultural sectors. And now being part of the smart irrigation hydrology lab. I am able to work directly with how we can improve water quality in those agricultural sectors. So, it was nice connection that kind of moved into this room. How do

Christine Westenhaver  

You work to reduce the environmental impact that agriculture can have on the land in your position?

Zoe Stroobosscher 

Yeah, so our lab specifically looks at essentially maximizing crop production, minimizing the environmental impacts in terms of water. So, we want to be able to reduce the amount of water needed to grow a healthy crop, we don't want to have any negative impacts on the crop, we want to be using just the precise amount of water and nutrients to raise it. And this is going to be a practice called precision agriculture. So, we want to help develop systems that only water absolutely when necessary. And so specifically, what our lab uses often are soil moisture probes, and soil moisture sensors. And so, we are looking at improving the use and adoption of soil moisture probes and sensors. While there's a lot of technologies out there that are really fantastic about saving water, they're kind of hard to use in the field, sometimes, especially on such a large production scale. And so, we have a lot of different projects going on to identify, you know, what technologies are the best at saving water? Or, you know, what do growers prefer to use? Like, what's the easiest for growers to use? What are the easiest to adopt what are economically the, you know, feasible technologies, and trying to create systems that just overall, make it easier on growers to save water, because growers, they're very busy, and they are dealing with a lot of different problems. So, we want to make, you know, precision irrigation, a very easy and adaptable option for farmers to use.

Christine Westenhaver 

So, it sounds like you're looking for ways like agriculture and natural resources can coexist in a sustainable way. What are some of the challenges like? Or some of the biggest challenges? I would say. Because there's a lot some of the main challenges like you see every day with, like the coexistence of both of those things?

Zoe Stroobosscher 

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot of like you said, there's a lot of challenges when it comes to using this sort of technology. I mean, I'd say challenge one is technology’s hard. Another challenge with working in terms of like you said, we're looking at natural resources. And as well as with agriculture, sometimes those worlds don't like to get along, when you're looking at growers versus policymakers maybe versus environmentalists were versus the general public, sometimes those groups don't have the best relationship with each other. And that can really inhibit, you know, a lot of growth. And a personal goal for me is I want to be able to improve some of that communication. Because the researchers maybe don't know very well, the problems that go on in the farm, we're not going to be able to develop better systems, you know, for a farmer to use, and if, you know, the, let's say policymakers may not be so in tune with what the research is going on. And so being able to kind of unify some of these groups that don't necessarily always get along, I think that could really help improve the experience for everybody, including the farmer, you know, to grow better solutions. And so yeah, I mean, the environmental problems are big, but also the social problems and research, you know, those could be really big challenges that you have to navigate very carefully. So.

Christine Westenhaver 

So, you focus on phosphorus sustainability, correct?

Zoe Stroobosscher 

Yeah, one of some of one of our projects that we're focusing on is on phosphorus sustainability. And it is we are a small part of a very big group called the sustainable technologies for phosphorus sustainability center.

Christine Westenhaver

So, what is phosphorus and working towards the sustainability of it like, what does that look like? If someone doesn't know what agriculture like necessarily all the inputs to agriculture are how we can be more sustainable when it comes to phosphorus in our agriculture?

Zoe Stroobosscher

Yeah, so phosphorus is a nutrient and it's a critical nutrient for life. Essentially, any if you know of ATP, you know, it's what gives you the energy to literally move. That is phosphorus that is bound by phosphorus. Phosphorus is unnecessary elements for everything on this earth, however, it is like anything can cause issues in abundance. So, when we apply phosphorus to the crops, it allows them to grow healthier and bigger. However, when we're applying too much phosphorus and the same for nitrogen to the two big ones that we talked about our nitrogen and phosphorus, when we apply too much nitrogen and phosphorus, when we apply water or it rains, there's nitrogen and phosphorus runs off into the waterways. And we start to get a large accumulation of nutrients into these waterways, which in turn can contribute to algal blooms, these blooms and depleting the water of oxygen and end up putting a lot of toxins into the water and creates a really disastrous system for all the surrounding waterways. But with a bit of a problem, because we can't stop applying nutrients to crops, but we need to find a way to kind of reduce those nutrients so that they aren't running off into the waterways. And so, part of the phosphorus, this set the step centers, because our goal is sort of coming together to research ways that we can reduce human dependence on phosphorus by 25%, in 25 years, so some of the ways that we can reduce the phosphorus use is like through precision fertigation. So, what we talk about in this sort of world of precision irrigation are the four R's. So, this is going to be the right rate, the right source, the right placement, and the right time. So, following all of those rules, only applying exactly the amount of same phosphorus that you need, at the right, with the right method, because you can you know, you can, there's a lot of different methods, you can do like a slow release, or you could do a spray, or you could do like an injection. So, depending on your area, you need to figure out the right method, figuring out where the right placement is, and only doing it at the correct time, like if you were say, to apply phosphorus, you know, in the middle of a rainstorm, you know, it's going to run off. So, you want to only apply under the correct conditions. That way, you can still get the crops the nutrients they need, but you don't have so much extra that it runs into the waterways.

Christine Westenhaver  

So, what are some of the inputs that affect your work and research towards phosphorus sustainability? So, I know you just went over the four R's and everything. Are there any other inputs that might affect the work and the research? that go into the sustainability?

Zoe Stroobosscher

I mean, yeah, like we were saying earlier, I mean, the things that kind of affect research, sensors, tech that always takes you by surprise and doesn't function quite the way you think it's going to be environmental factors really can throw us off sometimes I did not expect in South Florida, we have to be worrying about crops freezing. But that's a concern that we have certain crops down here with, regrow, we're in it, we're in a tropical, subtropical region. And we have to be really careful about temperatures sometimes in January, especially so that those have impacts. Sometimes college sheet policies change, and we have to roll with those policy changes that we were not necessarily expecting, you know, politics definitely affects us. And so, we have to be ready for some of those changes that happen overnight. We and that's just part of the game. You know,

Christine Westenhaver

I know you mentioned, like all the different stakeholders like your growers, policymakers, environmentalists, could you tell us a little bit about how like the stakeholders that you deal with directly or indirectly, like might have an input on that as well?

Zoe Stroobosscher  

Oh, yeah, primary stakeholder being our farmers, but other stakeholders like our, our funding agencies, we work really close with all of our funding agencies and reporting back successes and challenges and adapting to those challenges. Another interesting stakeholder is private industry. And so it'll be really interesting to work with the private industry, sometimes when they hear what we do we say here that we deal with technologies that are water saving, and so often we'll have maybe private industry presents us with a new technology, and they would like us to test it and find you know, and what we can do is we can test it, and we find you know, strengths or weaknesses to that technology. And sometimes that gets kind of complicated as to you know, wanting to hear good news. And sometimes it's not all good news. In fact, often there's always good things and bad things to new technologies. So that's an interesting stakeholder that we get to work with as well. And it, it's definitely a benefit to be able to work on all rounds with farmers with industry with policy and research, you know, we get to see a whole circle of what's all going on in agriculture. We also like to work with the community as well, we do a lot of extension, and outreach events where we can kind of educate the public, it's something that I engage I experience a lot. Our people are surprised to hear that there is research going on. And I think a lot of people know, there's problems with the environment that they hear, there's a lot of problems with water quality, and they hear a lot that is connected to agriculture. And sometimes that puts kind of an unfair pressure on farmers, that there's also a lot of solutions. And that's nice to be able to talk to the public and let them know, like, there's actually a lot of solutions being pursued as well. And on all sides, everybody's working hard to make it better. So that's a fun one that I like to be able to do is talk with a lot of the, with the public about the solution that we're pursuing, because we get so bogged down often with, you know, bad news and kind of crisis and drama and everything's falling apart, but you don't hear as much the progress. So that's it's nice to be able to reach out that there is progress. There's a lot that needs to be done. But I think for the most part, everybody's on the same side, we all want to be getting better. And there's a lot of positives to it.

Christine Westenhaver  

So, I know you mentioned earlier about like in 25 years reducing by 25%. Are there any other long-term goals of the research and work that you do?

Zoe Stroobosscher 

I would say I don't know about any, like HARD goals like buy this year have this much. But I definitely have the goal of creating a much more collaborative and interdisciplinary relationships between all of these groups, I really want to help heal some of those really deep hurts and these tensions that go between agriculture and industry, and environmentalists, and policy. There's some very deep mistrust and very deep pain that rifts between a lot of those groups. And personally, I hope to be able to heal, or at least bridge some of those hurts and start having more collaborative talks and having a much more peaceful relationship between some of these groups so that we can progress and find solutions together as opposed to sometimes where we get it's like, there's a lot of fighting between these groups, and a lot of frustration, and if we can heal some of those relationships, I'm sure we can accomplish so much. And that's my personal goal, I'd say, as a lab, we definitely want to improve precision, aggregate irrigation, and incorporate AI into it and machine learning into these systems so that we can create a really holistic system of irrigation and sustainability. That improves the experience for the growers, as well as for the community, you know, that it can improve the environment and improve everybody's lives. So, I'd say the goal of the lab, definitely to keep pursuing these precision irrigation methods and improving the experiences for everyone in all of the stakeholders.

Christine Westenhaver

Speaking of the goals that have to do with community members, what are some things like we as community members, even if we aren't around like Indian River, anything like how can we help your cause maybe get more involved with protecting and supporting a sustainable relationship between ag and the environment?

Zoe Stroobosscher   

Yeah, so I mean, while we're working to save water on the very large scale of agriculture, pretty much all of the principles that we follow, are completely adaptable to people's own homes. And one of our extension activities is teaching people of all ages how to build their own soil moisture indicator. And this is going to be an activity that is soon available online, I believe. And it teaches you how to make your own indicator from materials that you can just order up the Amazon and use it in your home. And it teaches people how to use less water right in your own yard because that can be a huge impact as well. While we're doing this, an ag people can do it in their own homes. And like I said earlier, I mentioned right rate, right source, right placement, right timing, this is all applicable in your own backyard, I mean reducing the amount of water so only use only irrigating when you absolutely have to. So, you can kind of pay more attention to the weather patterns, oh, maybe I shouldn't turn on my sprinklers, it looks like it's about to rain, or maybe it rained last night or, you know, maybe there's, you know, those sorts of indications and paying attention to what type of fertilizer you're putting on or if you've been having to be adding fertilizer to your yard. So, your plants. Oftentimes in certain areas, they'll be certain fertilizer recommendation or it's or fertilizer bands and things like that when the water quality is really poor in certain seasons. So, paying attention to those sorts of things when you shouldn't when you shutter when you shouldn't be applying and kind of just being a little more of a aware of when you add water or fertilizer and how much and that sort of things and looking at the recommendations for your area because they can change depending on where you are. So, all of what we pay attention to in the field, people can absolutely pay attention to in their own homes, and ultimately affects the same water source. I mean, we would all be working to improve the water quality right here. So, we would definitely be working together. If we're able to improve agriculture, as well, as you know, your own urban, you know, home is that we can work together.

Christine Westenhaver

So how has your experience man as a woman in the field of research and agriculture,

Zoe Stroobosscher 

I think being a woman in agriculture research, a lot of times, you're kind of fighting expectations, or you're kind of proving certain expectations wrong. And so whenever I am dealing with research or have them out in the field, no one quite expects me to be the one that's going to get their hands dirty, or the one that's going to be you know, grabbing the shovel and Stefan like loading stuff into the tractor, that I'm going to be the one that's crunching all the numbers or fixing the sensors or you know, writing the code that's going to fix kind of the problem. And so, it's kind of fun to get to prove certain perspectives wrong, where they were not looked at to be the one that's really going to be getting all involved in the dirt, but also getting all involved in the computers and the technology either and it's kind of fun to watch people try and figure it out sometimes what I'm going to do next.

Christine Westenhaver 

Those are all the questions I have. Thank you so much for your time.

Zoe Stroobosscher  

All right, thank you.

Christine Westenhaver  

This episode was made in partnership with the University of Florida's department of agricultural education and communication. Thank you for joining us for this episode of boundless science. We hope you listen to more episodes on our website streaming science.com. Have a great day.