Research Project: Contributions of Climate, Soils, Species Diversity, and Management to Sustainable Crop, Grassland, and Livestock Production Systems

Location: Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory

2023 Annual Report

Objectives
Objective 1: Develop procedures and quantify soil health attributes and their impact on agronomic production. Subobjective 1A: Determine the seasonal changes in inherent soil carbon and nutrient cycling potentials (N and P) using the Soil Health Nutrient Tool under conventional and no-till with two different crop rotation systems incorporating legume-dominated cover crops. Subobjective 1B: Determine the effects of conventional and conservation tillage (strip till, no-till) on soil fertility, greenhouse gas emissions, soil microbial diversity, yield, grain, fiber quality, and fertilizer use efficiency (N and P) which contribute to soil health attributes. Objective 2: Quantify native and managed grassland response to biological and climate variability. Subobjective 2A: Document long-term effects of precipitation variation on trends in biomass yield and ecosystem services from grasslands of different species composition. Subobjective 2B: Assess the linkage between the weighted values of Leaf Dry Matter Content of grassland communities and temporal variability in aboveground productivity. Subobjective 2C: Manipulate grassland community composition and resource availability to test the contributions of plant species and functional traits to grassland productivity. Objective 3: Operate and maintain the Texas Gulf Coast LTAR network site using technologies and practices agreed upon by the LTAR leadership. Contribute to the LTAR working groups and common experiments as resources allow. Submit relevant data with appropriate metadata to the LTAR Information Ecosystem. Subobjective 3A: Implement the Texas Gulf Coast LTAR Common Experiment comparing the sustainability of traditional grazing systems and adaptively managed rotational grazing systems. Subobjective 3B: Develop and enhance infrastructure for data acquisition, storage, and transfer to meet LTAR and REE data acquisition and archiving standards.

Approach
Research will apply a Genetics x Environment x Management approach quantify nutrient losses from fertilizer, interannual variability in biomass production, and grazing impacts on traditionally managed agroecosystems common in the southern U.S. Great Plains and evaluate results from management actions designed to reduce negative impacts of fertilization, precipitation variability, and grazing.

Progress Report
Objective 1: Progress has been made through and economic analysis that is serving as a foundational aspect of peer-review publications that are either in the works or currently under revision. Objective 2: Progress towards Objective 2 was rare due to either completion of projects in the previous fiscal year (FY22) or qualitative deficiency in personnel due to retirements. Despite retirements, there have been some publications associated with the Objective continuing to be published due to continued collaborations/contributions from some of the retired individuals. There have been some new hires that will continue with these projects and have started the process of managing the field studies. Data are being collected and will continue to be analyzed into the future. Moreover, there are outside agreements (e.g., Texas State University, Texas A&M University) that are being continued via new scientist hires. Objective 3: The grazing study at Riesel has continued and is still contributing to Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) initiatives. Moreover, a new scientist has been recruited to work on the soils and forage components of the study. This will enhance collaboration with university researchers that cover the cattle grazing portion of the experiment. Additionally, a new scientist on staff has been co-leading initiatives in the LTAR Soils Working Group within a sub-group focused on soil health. Progress over life of project: Over the life of the project, the Grassland, Soil and Water Research Laboratory (GSWRL) of Temple, Texas, has had great successes within agricultural research. Among long-term studies, GSWRL continued to evaluate the effects of tillage on greenhouse gas emissions in a corn/corn/cotton rotations under conventional till, strip till, and no-till field managements. In field and productivity analytics have taken place, and collections of additional in-field samples will be fully analyzed in the coming year. GSWRL also built a long-term record for year-to-year variability among biomass production of native grassland and switchgrass stands, with 11 years of data this project contributes to many opportunities within the Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network, and data collection efforts are continuing to build on this already long-term study. To date, it has been found that these stands continue to outperform surrounding grasslands and GSWRL is currently in the process of completing soil core analytics dating back to 2016. In addition to these LTAR research initiatives, GSWRL has made many contributions to the LTAR network through leadership among working groups, regular uploads to online data repositories, and collection of long-term in-situ data related to soil, air, and water quality. GSWRL has also had focus on applications of remote sensing to improve precision agriculture methods. These efforts include successful application of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based remote sensing to identify community scale values of leaf dry matter content (LDMC) and its relationship to biomass production. Moreover, GSWRL applied remote sensing methods to identify live vegetation cover to successfully inform rotational grazing for shortgrass prairie pastures. Each of these efforts described above have led to advancements in agricultural research leading to peer-reviewed publications, stakeholder engagement, and improved sustainability among production/management decisions.

Accomplishments
1. Long-term carbon dynamics for agricultural systems. Carbon dynamics at the landscape scale are an important process to understand in the face of climate variability and land-use change. Through the Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) Network, ARS researchers at Temple, Texas, and several other network locations evaluated carbon dynamics in agricultural landscapes over a 20-year period. Over the span of the project, the amount of precipitation was a bigger driver of carbon dynamics than temperature in the dryland agricultural systems. Various agricultural systems showed different abilities to sequester carbon in the soil, with sugarcane having the greatest sequestration while soybean resulted in the lowest sequestration among the cropped systems. In general, grain crops sequester carbon at a greater rate than legume crops. Through LTAR, long-term datasets such as these can be used to identify trends in carbon dynamics across broad geographic regions that will assist resource managers in adapting to climate extremes and variability.

Review Publications
Ladouceur, E., Blowes, S.A., Chase, J.M., Clark, A.T., Garbowski, M., Alberti, J., Arnillas, C.A., Bakker, J.D., Barrio, I.C., Bharath, S., Borer, E.T., Brudvig, L.A., Cadotte, M.W., Chen, Q., Collins, S.L., Dickman, C.R., Donohue, I., Du, G., Ebeling, A., Eisenhauer, N., Fay, P.A., Hagenah, N., Hautier, Y., Jentsch, A., Jónsdóttir, I.S., Komatsu, K., MacDougall, A., Martina, J.P., Moore, J.L., Morgan, J.W., Peri, P.L., Power, S.A., Ren, Z., Risch, A.C., Roscher, C., Schuchardt, M.A., Seabloom, E.W., Stevens, C.J., Veen, G.C., Virtanen, R., Wardle, G.M., Wilfahrt, P.A., Harpole, W.S. 2022. Linking changes in species composition and biomass in a globally distributed grassland experiment. Ecology Letters. 25(12):2699-2712. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14126.
Frey, B., Moser, B., Tytgat, B., Zimmermann, S., Alberti, J., Biederman, L.A., Borer, E.T., Broadbent, A., Caldeira, M.C., Davies, K.F., Eisenhauer, N., Eskelinen, A., Fay, P.A., Hagedorn, F., Hautier, Y., MacDougall, A.S., McCulley, R.L., Moore, J.L., Nepel, M., Power, S.A., Seabloom, E.W., Vásquez, E., Virtanen, R., Yahdjian, L., Risch, A.C. 2023. Long-term N-addition alters the community structure of functionally important N-cycling soil microorganisms across global grasslands. Soil Biology and Biochemistry. 176. Article 108887. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2022.108887.
Heckman, R.W., Rueda, A., Bonnette, J.E., Aspinwall, M.J., Khasanova, A., Hawkes, C.V., Juenger, T.E., Fay, P.A. 2022. Legacies of precipitation influence primary production in Panicum virgatum. Oecologia. 201(1):269-278. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-022-05281-x.
Risch, A.C., Zimmermann, S., Schütz, M., Borer, E.T., Broadbent, A.A., Caldeira, M.C., Davies, K.F., Eisenhauer, N., Eskelinen, A., Fay, P.A., Hagedorn, F., Knops, J.M., Lembrechts, J., MacDougall, A.S., McCulley, R., Melbourne, B.A., Moore, J.L., Power, S.A., Seabloom, E.W., Silviera, M.L., Virtanen, R., Yahdjian, L., Ochoa-Hueso, R. 2023. Drivers of the microbial metabolic quotient across global grasslands. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 32(6):904-918. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13664.
Yost, J.L., Leytem, A.B., Bjorneberg, D.L., Dungan, R.S., Schott, L. 2022. The use of winter forage crops and dairy manure to improve soil water storage in continuous corn in Southern Idaho. Agricultural Water Management. 277. Article 108074. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2022.108074.
Ricketts, M.P., Heckman, R.W., Fay, P.A., Matamala, R., Jastrow, J.D., Fritschi, F.B., Bonnette, J., Juenger, T.E. 2023. Local adaptation of switchgrass drives trait relations to yield and differential responses to climate and soil environments. Global Change Biology Bioenergy. 15(5):680-696. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcbb.13046.
Lamichhane, S., Adhikari, K., Kumar, L. 2022. National soil organic carbon map of agricultural lands in Nepal. Geoderma Regional. 30. Article e00568. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geodrs.2022.e00568.
Mishra, U., Yeo, K., Adhikari, K., Riley, W.J., Hoffman, F.M., Hudson, C., Gautam, S. 2022. Empirical relationships between environmental factors and soil organic carbon produce comparable prediction accuracy to machine learning. Soil Science Society of America Journal. 86(6):1611-1624. https://doi.org/10.1002/saj2.20453.
Rahmani, S.R., Ackerson, J., Schulze, D., Adhikari, K., Libohova, Z. 2022. Digital mapping of soil organic matter and cation exchange capacity in a low relief landscape using LiDAR data. Agronomy Journal. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy12061338.
Muehleisen, A.J., Watkins, C.R., Altmire, G.R., Shaw, E.A., Case, M.F., Aoyama, L., Brambila, A., Reed, P.B., LaForgia, M., Borer, E.T., Seabloom, E.W., Bakker, J.D., Arnillas, C.A., Biederman, L., Chen, Q., Cleland, E.E., Eskelinen, A., Fay, P.A., Hagenah, N., Harpole, S., Hautier, Y., Henning, J.A., Knops, J.M., Komatsu, K.J., Ladouceur, E., Laungani, R., MacDougall, A., McCulley, R.L., Moore, J.L., Ohlert, T., Power, S.A., Raynaud, X., Stevens, C.J., Virtanen, R., Wilfahrt, P., Hallett, L.M. 2023. Nutrient addition drives declines in grassland species richness primarily via enhanced species loss. Journal of Ecology. 111(3):552-563. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.14038.
Menefee, D.S., Scott, R.L., Abraha, M., Alfieri, J.G., Baker, J.M., Browning, D.M., Chen, J., Gonet, J.M., Johnson, J.M., Miller, G.R., Nifong, R.L., Robertson, P., Russel, E.R., Saliendra, N.Z., Schreiner-Mcgraw, A.P., Suyker, A., Wagle, P., Wente, C.D., White Jr, P.M., Smith, D.R. 2022. Unraveling the effects of management and climate on carbon fluxes of U.S. croplands using the USDA Long-Term Agroecosystem (LTAR) network. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. 326. Article 109154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2022.109154.
Li, Z., Menefee, D.S., Yang, X., Cui, S., Rajan, N. 2022. Simulating productivity of dryland cotton using APSIM, climate scenario analysis, and remote sensing. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. 325. Article 109148. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2022.109148.
Smith, D.R. 2022. Clean Water Act at 50: Celebrating the golden anniversary of the blue policy. Journal of Environmental Quality. 51(5):775-779. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeq2.20407.
Bos, J.H., Williams, M.R., Penn, C.J., Smith, D.R. 2022. Dual-isotope approach for assessing agricultural management effects on nutrient dynamics: Proof of concept. Agrosystems, Geosciences & Environment. 5:e20306. https://doi.org/10.1002/agg2.20306.
Flynn, K.C., Spiegal, S.A., Kleinman, P.J., Meinen, R.J., Smith, D.R. 2022. Manureshed management to overcome longstanding nutrient imbalances in U.S. agriculture. Resources Conservation and Recycling. 188. Article 106632. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2022.106632.
Kleinman, P.J., Osmond, D.L., Christianson, L.E., Flaten, D.N., Ippolito, J.A., Jarvie, H.P., Kaye, J.P., King, K.W., Leytem, A.B., McGrath, J.M., Nelson, N.O., Shober, A.L., Smith, D.R., Staver, K.W., Sharpley, A.N. 2022. Addressing conservation practice limitations and trade-offs for reducing phosphorus loss from agricultural fields. Agricultural and Environmental Letters. 7(2). Article e20084. https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20084.
Bakker, J.D., Price, J.N., Henning, J.A., Batzer, E.E., Ohlert, T.J., Wainwright, C.E., Adler, P.B., Alberti, J., Arnillas, C.A., Biederman, L.A., Borer, E.T., Brudvig, L.A., Buckley, Y.M., Bugalho, M.N., Cadotte, M.W., Caldeira, M.C., Catford, J.A., Chen, Q., Crawley, M.J., Daleo, P., Dickman, C.R., Donohue, I., Dupre, M.E., Ebeling, A., Eisenhauer, N., Fay, P.A., Gruner, D.S., Haider, S., Hautier, Y., Jentsch, A., Kirkman, K., Knops, J.M., Lannes, L.S., MacDougall, A.S., McCulley, R.L., Mitchell, R.M., Moore, J.L., Morgan, J.W., Mortensen, B., Olde Venterink, H., Peri, P.L., Power, S.A., Prober, S.M., Roscher, C., Sankaran, M., Seabloom, E.W., Smith, M.D., Stevens, C., Sullivan, L.L., Tedder, M., Veen, G.F., Virtanen, R., Wardle, G.M. 2023. Compositional variation in grassland plant communities. Ecosphere. 14(6). Article e4542. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4542.