Skip to main content
ARS Home » Plains Area » Fort Collins, Colorado » Center for Agricultural Resources Research » Soil Management and Sugarbeet Research » Research » Research Project #432311
Research Project: Management Practices for Long Term Productivity of Great Plains Agriculture

Location: Soil Management and Sugarbeet Research

2022 Annual Report


Objectives
Objective 1: Develop and refine management practices for enhanced yields, nitrogen use efficiencies, carbon sequestration, soil biodiversity and function, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural systems of the Great Plains. Sub-objective 1.1: Improve nutrient (especially nitrogen) management. Sub-objective 1.2: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, N2O, CH4). Sub-objective 1.3: Characterize soil C and N stocks, fractions, isotopic signatures, and SOC chemistry with depth to develop BMPs that increase C-Seq. Sub-objective 1.4: Evaluate the effect of management practices on soil microbial structure and function. Sub-objective 1.5: Increase long-term productivity and economic returns. Objective 2: Improve procedures for national agricultural greenhouse gas inventories and indices to assess soil biology, soil health, and nutrient management. Sub-objective 2.1: Develop a new USDA ARS Nutrient Uptake and Outcome (NUOnet) database and improve nutrient indices and tools. Sub-objective 2.2: Improve procedures and tools for assessment of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, N2O, CH4), NUE and C-Seq. Sub-objective 2.3: Develop a new national soil biology database. Sub-objective 2.4: Develop a new soil biology (soil health) index to quantify beneficial bacteria in soil. Objective 3: Assess the long-term consequences of management practices and cropping systems on nitrogen use efficiencies, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon sequestration, soil biodiversity and functions. Sub-objective 3.1: Implement a data management plan and procedures to facilitate data archiving and retrieval in the national databases developed in Objective 2 (NUOnet, GRACEnet, soil biology). Sub-objective 3.2: Improve long-term nutrient (especially nitrogen) management, while reducing the long-term emissions of greenhouse gases (CO2, N2O, CH4), increasing C-Seq, and enhancing soil health.


Approach
Often the management of agricultural lands has led to degradation of the soil resource, including the depletion of soil carbon and the loss of natural and synthetic nutrients. The lost carbon and nutrients negatively impact producer’s profit margins and have negative environmental impacts (lead to increased buildup of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere and pollution of surface and ground water resources). Improved agricultural management can reverse this degradation, improve profit margins and minimize or even mitigate the negative environmental impacts. The overall goal of this project is to develop new and/or improved best management practices (BMPs), new and/or improved models, tools and databases, and sustainable production systems that can help us adapt to and/or mitigate climate change. We will use a combined approach that incorporates field applied studies to develop BMPs (Objective 1); develop and/or improve models, databases, and analytical tools (Objective 2); and conduct field analysis of long-term patterns and processes to assess if the performance of the BMPs is maintained, or improved, over time, and if the models and/or other tools can simulate measured values over decades (Objective 3). The scientific approach includes using different key performance variables of plant productivity such as crop yields; and soil health, nitrogen use efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, soil carbon sequestration, and soil biological structure and function. A full economic analysis of each BMP will also be conducted. Additionally, basic mechanistic research to increase our knowledge of the basic science and processes of soil chemistry, soil physics, and soil biology, is also being conducted. The Soil Management and Sugar Beet Research Unit scientists have unique skills in each of these fields, and also bring outside collaborators together as part of a comprehensive and multi-faceted research program. As a result of this research, new and viable solutions are developed that address the complexities associated with soil and air management. Tools and information are provided to producers, land managers, and policy makers helping to ensure productive and healthy soils, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and improved air and water quality. Farm sustainability and profitability are improved while improving conservation and minimizing negative environmental impact.


Progress Report
This is a final report for 3012-11120-001-000D. This project was replaced by 3012-12210-001-000D. Objective 1. Five years of studies about how management practices impact long-term agricultural productivity of the Great Plains were completed. These included studies on the sustainability and effect of these systems to sequester soil carbon, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase nitrogen use efficiencies and economic returns, prevent soil/water degradation, enhance yields, and maintain soil biology. Various nitrogen management strategies related to the 4R management recommendations (right time, source, type, rate) were evaluated and have been reported in the scientific literature. The use of other best management strategies such as cover crops, crop residue management, and tillage practices that minimize soil disturbance were also monitored and reported. In addition, alternative cropping systems such as management practices (e.g., polycrops, sorghum sudangrass, and other rotations) showed increased sustainability, higher yields, and higher nutrient use efficiencies. Objective 2. Data from Greenhouse Gas Reduction through Agricultural Carbon Enhancement network (GRACEnet) and Nutrient Uptake and Outcome network (NUOnet) have been incorporated into Agricultural Collaborative Research Outcomes System (AgCROS), which also includes information from related ARS projects - Resilient Economic Agricultural Practices (REAP), Long Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR), Agricultural Antibiotic Resistance (AgAR), and other networks. Database consolidation was completed to help increase data handling capacity, data visualization, on-the-fly-analysis, and site data uploads. Publicly available GRACEnet data include crop yield, soil carbon, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, land management, weather, and other information from 33 field sites across the U.S. with some studies beginning in the 1980s. In addition to observational data, the system now also generates maps of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions based on the USDA GHG inventory for major crop types across the U.S. Long term harvested biomass, soil carbon stock, and N2O emissions data from studies in Colorado and other regions continue to be collected to improve and evaluate the DayCent (Daily CENTURY) model and perform meta-analyses. NUOnet datasets from 10 additional sites have been aligned, in addition to the previous 11 NUOnet field sites released in 2019. DayCent was extended to simulate ammonia volatilization associated with application of urea-based fertilizers, slow-release nitrogen and fertilizers formulated with nitrification and urease inhibitors. Bayesian calibration was used to parameterize and evaluate the new model against an extensive data set with high quality N2O measurements from the U.S. and around the world. The enhanced model is currently being used to estimate soil GHG beginning with the 2022 national inventory. Model input databases used for the inventory simulations were also improved by combining land use/cover data from the Natural Resources Inventory (NRI) with more detailed Conservation Effects Assessment Project data. The improved database was used to extend model input files to 2015 and simulations were performed for the national GHG inventory published in 2021. The soil biology system (myPhyloDB) was been optimized to increase the speed for all data uploading and handling procedures. Several new univariate and multivariate analyses were also added. Hundreds of soil samples from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Soil Health Assessment Initiative have been received and have been analyzed for microbial community composition and beneficial gene abundance. These samples, in addition to nearly 1000 samples from ongoing research projects analyzed under this research project, continue to be used to develop indicator curves for selected beneficial genes (e.g., nitrogen fixation) and a general molecular assessment of soil health. Objective 3. Long-term studies were monitored at Colorado State University. Field sampling of nitrogen fertilization, no-tillage, and organic matter addition studies was completed for the 2019 field year, and laboratory analyses are in progress. Long-term data analyses are in progress. When deep soil carbon under long-term no-tillage was compared to strip tillage, it was found that, although strip tillage improved yield by 13%, soil carbon was lost even with low-impact tillage. Five years of research on the long-term effects on soil biological diversity and function, GHG, carbon sequestration, nitrogen use efficiencies, and macro- and micro-nutrient dynamics were conducted and will continue as part of the long-term goals of this CRIS. To date, long-term studies found that manure applications increased crop quality compared to inorganic nitrogen fertilizer application. Manure increased grain concentrations of nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and magnesium, which are important elements in animal nutrition. These studies found that management practices that maintain or improve soil health and nutrient availability also improve maize productivity and nutritional quality, which could have cascading positive impacts on animal and human nutrition. The studies show that conservation agriculture practices are good alternatives to traditional practices to increase the sustainability of these irrigated farming systems.


Accomplishments
1. myPhyloDB. myPhyloDB is a cutting-edge tool to aid the standardization, normalization, and technology transfer of metagenomics data. The advent of next-generation sequencing has led to a dramatic increase in the analysis of genetic material for microbial populations from a variety of sources (e.g., soil, human, animal). However, current analysis platforms do not allow for the convenient storage or standardization necessary for efficient technology transfer and cross-study analyses. An ARS researcher in Fort Collins, Colorado, developed myPhyloDB to fill the need for a database that includes soil biology and soil biology responses to management. This new web-based tool is a significant accomplishment that provides an easy-to-use graphical interface and adds new functionality to the DNA sequence processing capabilities of Mothur – the most widely cited bioinformatics program (4000+ citations). The first version of myPhyloDB has been downloaded or distributed via CD-ROM to more than 100 different research groups, in fields ranging from soil microbial ecology to human health and nutrition to help them resolve scientific problems. The web-based site has had 1,616 visitors from at least 73 countries.

2. Greenhouse gas reduction through agricultural carbon enhancement network (GRACEnet) project. There is a need to improve the functionality of Greenhouse gas reduction through Agricultural Carbon Enhancement network (GRACEnet) by addressing widescale agricultural management impacts on soil carbon and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. An ARS researcher in Fort Collins, Colorado, in cooperation with numerous ARS locations, led GRACEnet updates resulting in the portal now containing data from 17 ARS locations. These include more than 450,000 total records including 116,000 soil GHG emission measurements and 83,000 soil measurements. GRACEnet data increased the accuracy of GHG emission estimates reported in the U.S. national GHG inventories, including the latest EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) inventory published during 2017. Additionally, project data have been used to develop scaling factors to quantify the GHG reductions for improved management practices imbedded in decision support tools. GRACEnet data are now being used to validate the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Carbon Management Evaluation Tool [COMET]-Farm and COMET Planner tools. COMET-Farm is used by Boulder County, Colorado to estimate entity level management impacts on GHG fluxes for the Restore Colorado project, while COMET-Planner is used to estimate the outcomes of practices (e.g., cover crops, no-till, reduced till, mulching, compost application) for the California Healthy Soils Program (HSP).

3. Model development and improvement for national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories and decision support tools. ARS researchers in Fort Collins, Colorado, collaborated with Colorado State University to calibrate DayCent (Daily CENTURY) with high frequency N2O observations from gas flux towers and validated with observations from additional experimental sites. Model improvements resulted in an average increase in emissions of 22 percent from 1990 to 2017 relative to the previous inventory. Additionally, ARS contributed to the development of the interactive Carbon Reduction Potential Evaluation Tool (CaRPE Tool) that couples cropland and grazing land data from the Ag Census (USDA-National Agricultural Statistics Service) with county-level GHG emission reduction coefficients reported in COMET-Planner for the U.S. Data from the CaRPE Tool have been used by American Farmland Trust in sworn testimony before the Congressional House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis to explore the potential role of agriculture in reducing GHG emissions and combating climate change. State summary reports outline GHG mitigation potentials due to conservation practice adoption have been transferred to several non-governmental organization partners (U.S. Climate Alliance, The Nature Conservancy) and 23 state agricultural departments to prioritize conservation practice implementation in agriculture.

4. Limited irrigation and fertigation can reduce climate impact. Irrigated farmland is some of the most productive in the U.S. yet maintaining crop yields and nutrient availability with scarce water is challenging. ARS researchers in Fort Collins, Colorado, and collaborators at Colorado State University found that limited irrigation reduced greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) 15-50% but also reduced maize yield in some years. The surface drip fertigation resulted in total GHG emissions that were one-tenth of literature-based measurements from sprinkler-irrigated maize systems. Both conserving water and reducing GHG emissions will be increasingly vital in developing sustainable agricultural systems in the arid Western U.S. These extremely low GHG emission values will be used to further refine the U.S. National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, which catalogs best agricultural management practices.


Review Publications
Harmel, R.D., Kleinman, P.J., Eve, M.D., Ippolito, J.A., Beebout, S.E., Delgado, J.A., Vandenberg, B.C., Buser, M.D. 2021. Partnerships for Data Innovations (PDI): Facilitating data stewardship and catalyzing research engagement in the digital age. Agricultural & Environmental Letters. 6. Article e20055. https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20055.
 Barrera, V.H., Delgado, J.A., Alwang, J. 2021. Conservation agriculture can help the South American Andean region achieve food security. Agronomy Journal. 113(6):4494-4509. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.20879.
 Della Chiesa, T., Piñeiro, G., Del Grosso, S.J., Parton, W.J., Araujo, P.I., Yahdjian, L. 2022. Higher than expected N2O emissions from soybean crops in the Pampas Region of Argentina: Estimates from DayCent simulations and field measurements. Science of the Total Environment. 835. Article e155408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155408.
 Delgado, J.A., Floyd, B.A., Brandt, A.D., D'Adamo, R.E. 2021. Use of narrow rows in sprinkler-irrigated corn systems to increase grain yields, aboveground biomass, and water and nitrogen use efficiencies. Agronomy. 12(1). Article e82. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy12010082.
 Miner, G.S., Delgado, J.A., Ippolito, J.A., Johnson, J.J., Kluth, D., Stewart, C.E. 2022. Wheat grain micronutrients and relationships with yield and protein in the U.S. Central Great Plains. Field Crops Research. 279. Article e108453. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2022.108453.
 Yang, Y., Ogle, S., Del Grosso, S.J., Mueller, N., Spencer, S., Ray, D. 2021. Regionalizing crop types to enhance global ecosystem modeling of maize production. Environmental Research Letters. 17. Article e014013. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac3f06.
 Della Chiesa, T., Del Grosso, S.J., Hartman, M., Parton, W., Echarte, L., Yahdjian, L., Piñeiro, G. 2022. A novel mechanism to simulate intercropping and relay cropping using the DayCent model. Ecological Modeling. 465. Article e109869. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2021.109869.
 Lyons, S.E., Arthur, D.K., Slaton, N.A., Pearce, A.W., Spargo, J.T., Osmond, D.L., Kleinman, P.J. 2021. Development of a soil test correlation and calibration database for the USA. Agricultural and Environmental Letters. 6(4). Article e20058. https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20058.
 Cotrufo, M.F., Haddix, M.L., Kroeger, M.E., Stewart, C.E. 2022. The role of plant litter traits, and microbial and soil chemical diversity on the formation of particulate and mineral-associated organic matter. Soil Biology and Biochemistry. Article e108648. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2022.108648.
 Del Grosso, S.J., Ogle, S., Nevison, C., Gurung, R., Parton, W., Wagner-Riddle, C., Smith, W., Winiwarter, W., Grant, B., Tenuta, M., Marx, E., Spencer, S., Williams, S. 2022. A gap in nitrous oxide emissions reporting complicates long-term climate mitigation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS). 119(31). Article e2200354119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2200354119.
 Leite-Mondin, M., Dilegge, M.J., Manter, D.K., Weir, T.L., Silva-Filho, M.C., Vivanco, J.M. 2021. The gut microbiota composition of Trichoplusia ni is adaptable and may influence its polyphagous behavior. Scientific Reports. 11(1). Article e5786. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-85057-0.
 Monohon, S.J., Manter, D.K., Vivanco, J.M. 2021. Conditioned soils reveal plant-selected microbial communities that impact plant drought response. Scientific Reports. 11. Article e21153. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-00593-z.
 Zhang, J., Peng, B., Pan, M., Zhou, W., Jiang, C., Kimm, H., Franz, T., Grant, R., Yang, Y., Rudnik, D., Heeren, D., Suyker, A., Bauerle, W., Miner, G.S. 2021. Sustainable irrigation based on co-regulation of soil water supply and atmospheric evaporative demand. Nature Communications. 12. Article e5549. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25254-7.
 Acharya, P., Ghimire, R., Paye, W., Ganguli, A., Del Grosso, S.J. 2022. Net greenhouse gas balance with cover crops in semi-arid irrigated cropping systems. Scientific Reports. 12. Article e12386. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-16719-w.
 Lutz, F., Del Grosso, S.J., Ogle, S., Williams, S., Minoli, S., Rolinski, S., Heinke, J., Stoorvogel, J., Muller, C. 2020. The importance of management information and soil moisture representation for simulating tillage effects on N2O emissions in LPJmL5.0-tillage. Geoscientific Model Development. 13(9):3905-3923. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3905-2020.
 Del Grosso, S.J., Smith, W., Kraus, D., Massad, R., Vogeler, I., Fuchs, K. 2020. Approaches and concepts of modelling denitrification: Increased process understanding using observational data can reduce uncertainties. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 47:37-45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2020.07.003.
 Bergh, E.L., Calderon, F.J., Clemensen, A.K., Durso, L.M., Eberly, J.O., Halvorson, J.J., Jin, V.L., Margenot, A.J., Stewart, C.E., Van Pelt, R.S., Liebig, M.A. 2022. Time in a bottle: Use of soil archives for understanding long-term soil change. Soil Science Society of America Journal. 86(3):520-527. https://doi.org/10.1002/saj2.20372.
 Flynn, N.E., Stewart, C.E., Comas, L.H., Del Grosso, S.J., Schnarr, C., Schipanski, M., Von Fischer, J.C., Stuchiner, E.R., Fonte, S.J. 2022. Deficit irrigation impacts on greenhouse gas emissions under drip-fertigated maize in the Great Plains of Colorado. Journal of Environmental Quality. 51(5):877-889. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeq2.20353.
 Spanner, R., Neubauer, J., Heick, T.M., Grusak, M.A., Hamilton, O., Rivera-Varas, V., De Jonge, R., Pethybridge, S., Webb, K.M., Leubner-Metzger, G., Secor, G.A., Bolton, M.D. 2022. Seed-borne Cercospora beticola can initiate Cercospora leaf spot in sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) fruit tissue. Phytopathology. 112:1016-1028. https://doi.org/10.1094/PHYTO-03-21-0113-R.
 Manter, D.K., Moore, J.M., Lehman, R.M., Hamm, A.K. 2021. Microbial community composition, diversity, and function. In: Karlen, D.L., Stott, D.E., Mikha, M.M., editors. Laboratory Methods for Soil Health Analysis: Volume 2. Madison, WI: Soil Science Society of America. p. 289-323. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780891189831.ch13.
 Gurung, R., Ogle, S., Breidt, J., Parton, W., Del Grosso, S.J., Zhang, T., Hartman, M., Williams, S., Venterea, R.T. 2021. Modeling nitrous oxide mitigation potential of enhanced efficiency nitrogen fertilizers from agricultural systems. Science of the Total Environment. 801. Article e149342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149342.
 Phillips, C.L., Meyer, K.M., Garcia-Jaramillo, M., Weidman, C., Stewart, C.E., Wanzek, T.A., Grusak, M.A., Watts, D.W., Novak, J.M., Trippe, K.M. 2022. Towards predicting biochar impacts on plant-available soil nitrogen content. Biochar. 4. Article 9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42773-022-00137-2.