From California to the Corn Belt

Manny Sabbagh is committed to sustainability, and he believes that soil has a role to play. A PhD candidate in the Graduate Program in Land and Atmospheric Science, he is developing best practices for using cover crops and manure to improve soil quality on land used to grow crops like corn. These techniques can be implemented by farmers to reduce soil erosion and add nutrients and organic matter to the soil.

Sabbagh can trace the spark of his passion for sustainability all the way back to kindergarten. “I was a kind of a weird kid; once I learned about recycling and reusing things instead of throwing away the trash, I thought that was a really cool thing to do.” That interest intensified when he attended a science camp in the San Gabriel mountains in his home state of California. There he learned about composting, or “recycling food” as he saw it.

In college, Sabbagh was on track to become a physician. Sabbagh has type 1 diabetes, and wanted to become a pediatric endocrinologist to support children growing up with the disease. As an undergraduate at University of California, Berkeley, Sabbagh majored in molecular environmental biology and took the MCAT, the entrance exam for medical school. But things changed when he came across the book Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery. “It exposed me to how impactful soil science and agronomy is to solving the climate problems that we're facing.”

Instead of applying to medical school, Sabbagh sought out graduate programs that would let him explore his curiosity for soil science and sustainability. He attended the University of Tennessee, Knoxville where he earned a master’s degree. Sabbagh studied cover crops and their rates of nitrogen release and how they affect various soil nitrogen pools. His PhD work here at the University of Minnesota continues this work, and integrates manure into the mix. 

Read the full story on the Department of Soil, Water and Climate website.