In Michael Boehm's office on East Campus at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is a collection of science books — some of them 150 years old. "History repeats itself. There are some amazing insights in those books," says Boehm. "I think what happens is when someone before us deals with a challenge or makes an observation, and years later, the problem creeps up again, we have the opportunity — if we are mindful of history — to tap these practices in meaningful ways."

Michael Boehm

In Boehm's case, certain principles can be applied to new places and new challenges. Last fall, Boehm was named the new Harlan vice chancellor for the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources (IANR) at UNL and University of Nebraska vice president for Agriculture and Natural Resources. Boehm came to UNL from the Ohio State University, where he was a professor of plant pathology and vice provost for academic and strategic planning.

Although he was initially hired as a turf grass pathologist at Ohio State, he eventually expanded into cereal crops. "If you're an auto mechanic, you're tuned into multiple makes and models. And throughout my career, I've worked in various makes and models," Boehm says.

A big part of his research at Ohio State was developing integrated management strategies for root diseases of turf grass in the hopes of minimizing the need for applying fungicides and preventing the development of fungicide resistance. This involved the use of organic matter amendments to manipulate the microorganisms living in the soil or on the turf grass in hopes of suppressing the development of disease.

Fusarium head blight studies
In 1997, Boehm broadened his research to include a focus on the integrated management of fusarium head blight — also referred to as FHB or scab — of wheat and barley, a disease that can have a devastating impact on yield and grain quality. He and a colleague at the USDA Laboratory in Peoria, Ill., set out to identify and commercialize biological control agents for FHB. Similar to his research on turf grass, Boehm collected anthers and identified anther-colonizing microbes that could suppress the development of the FHB and the production of mycotoxins like deoxynivalenol (DON) — commonly referred to as vomitoxin. After nearly two decades of working on FHB, Boehm and his colleagues are very close to launching a commercially available product that can be used by cereal farmers to manage the disease.

"From having the initial idea to identifying and doing the work, working with producers, it's been 20 years," Boehm says. "With the focus on green chemistry and the issues surrounding fungicide resistance, our hope is that we can offer farmers an integrated approach to managing FHB that uses biological control in combination with judicious use of fungicides, moderately resistant cultivars and smart agronomic practices."

Learning trend
From the mid-1980s to mid-2000s, Boehm served in the U.S. Army Reserve and Navy Reserve, helping to further prepare him for managing integrated systems and goals. Since 2010, his role has been mostly administrative, serving as the vice provost for Academic and Strategic Planning at the Ohio State.

"The way I look at it, I've been honing my leadership, problem-solving, and communication skills and helping advance large and complex integrated systems for the past three decades," Boehm says. "To be an effective plant pathologist, I needed to understand plant breeding, agronomy, soils, weather trends and economics to be able to pull all this together using an integrated-systems approach. Balancing all of the individual elements of complex systems helped prepare me well for my new role as IANR's next vice chancellor."

Boehm is now head of a team of nearly 2,000 employees covering a wide range of Nebraska agriculture and natural resources, including 330 tenure track professors — 130 of which were hired in the last two years.

"In 2012, [now UNL Chancellor, then UNL Harlan Vice Chancellor of IANR] Ronnie Green engineered a discussion called IANR to 2025. It was done in a collaborative way where faculty, staff and community partners were invited to identify the critical needs to support Nebraska's agricultural economy and culture," says Boehm. "The results of those conversations were items like an increased focus on integrated beef, crop and water systems, focusing on the balance between production agriculture and the sustainable use of resources like water."

One key focus of IANR has been working with farmers and ranchers in the state to adapt to a volatile agriculture economy and shifting weather patterns. This includes the Greenhouse Innovation Center at the Nebraska Innovation Campus, and in-field phenotyping using a Spidercam — a technology most often associated with sporting events — which will be installed at the Eastern Nebraska Research and Extension Center near Mead this summer. Phenotyping is a kind of remote sensing that involves measuring observable characteristics as an interaction of the environment and the plant's genetic traits, including stress and drought tolerance.

"All of this comes back to Nebraska's unique role given our understanding of our climate, soils, water, and all the work on breeding for drought and stress tolerance, and also animal breeding for integrated cattle, swine, poultry production," Boehm says. "Nebraska has been and is uniquely positioned to make so many positive impacts around the world."

Boehm has made it his mission to visit all 93 counties in Nebraska. So far, he has visited 41. This spring and summer, he plans to take it a step further, visiting with people at county fairs, the state fair, Husker Harvest Days and Husker football games. That includes visiting with farmers and ranchers to learn about the challenges facing Nebraska agriculture.

"I'm a student of all subjects," Boehm says. "I look forward to the opportunity to learn more about the good life, with the great people of Nebraska."