(Radio Iowa) – Iowa State University researchers are studying an emerging field called agrivoltaics, the practice of farming on land where solar power is being generated. Matt O’Neal, an I-S-U professor of plant pathology, entomology and microbiology, says the team will be planting a variety of fruits and vegetables literally in the shadow of an array of solar panels at a planned site south of Ames. I-S-U has won a four-year, one-point-eight million dollar grant from the U-S Department of Energy to conduct the research in the non-traditional farm setting. Agrivoltaics holds much promise, O’Neal says, as there’s an increasing amount of prime farmland that’s -not- being used for farming because it has solar panels planted instead.