Location: Great Basin Rangelands Research
Project Number: 2060-21500-001-024-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 1, 2024
End Date: Aug 30, 2027
Objective:
Objective 1: ARS and UNR will collaborate on the assessment of soil nutrient availability in calcareous and non-calcareous soils in relationships between soil chemistry and vegetation response as well as potential soil amendments in suppressing cheatgrass in Great Basin environments.
Objective 2: UNR will synthesize data sets of soil chemistry, collect soils for greenhouse experiments and laboratory measurements. The ARS PI will collect cheatgrass seed for greenhouse experiments and assist in conducting greenhouse experiments, assist in manuscript preparation, and provide ARS laboratory space and analysis.
Approach:
UNR and ARS will identify 10 separate black sagebrush sites in northern Nevada adjacent to Wyoming big sagebrush sites and collect calcareous and non-calcareous soils to measure soil chemistry of these soils as it relates to plant growth, especially cheatgrass performance. ARS scientists will test cheatgrass and the native perennial grass, bottlebrush squirreltail in ARS greenhouse facility to measure plant growth as it relates to available soil nutrients with and without the addition Calcium Carbonate. All soil chemistry measurements will take place in ARS soils laboratory. ARS and UNR anticipate a minimum of two peer-reviewed manuscripts ands multiple presentations from this agreement.
