Location: Soil Drainage Research
Project Number: 5080-13210-003-018-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Aug 1, 2021
End Date: Jul 31, 2023
Objective:
The objective of the research is to advance understanding of which soil properties are most important for water quality impacts in order to improve the utility of soil health tests.
Approach:
Soil samples previously collected by ARS will be used to conduct measurements of a suite of soil properties. The analyses will include: Active C (aka permanganate-oxidizable C), 24-hr CO2 burst upon rewetting, ACE protein, and soil inorganic N. Additionally, commercial soil testing labs will be utilized to conduct typical agronomic soil assessments including: soil organic matter, pH, and nutrient (N,P,K,S) concentrations. The collected data will be utilized to develop a database of the relationships between multiple soil properties. The soil data will be used to analyze the relationships between soil health properties and water quality impacts.
