Project Overview
Annual Reports
Commodities
- Agronomic: buckwheat, millet, peas (field, cowpeas), sorghum sudangrass
Practices
- Crop Production: cover crops, crop rotation, organic fertilizers, tissue analysis
- Natural Resources/Environment: carbon sequestration
- Soil Management: green manures, nutrient mineralization, organic matter, soil analysis, soil chemistry, soil quality/health
Proposal abstract:
The ability to predict contributions of plant available nitrogen derived from cover crop residue remains a major challenge for growers. Our goal is to identify indicators from soil samples that more accurately predict short-term nitrogen mineralization rates in the weeks-to-months following the incorporation of popular warm season cover crops. We are in the process of investigating changes in light particulate organic matter (L-POM) content as well as a variety of biotic and abiotic soil measurements after the incorporation of five cover crops: buckwheat, cowpea, foxtail millet, sorghum-sudan grass, and a cowpea-millet mix.
Project objectives from proposal:
1) Investigate whether cover crop quality is reflected in L-POM measures over the fall season after the incorporation of cover crops.
2) Identify whether changes in L-POM are correlated with anticipated changes in microbial community characteristics over the fall season after the incorporation of cover crops.
3) Compare L-POM characteristics with commonly used nitrogen mineralization assays that target the active nitrogen fraction.
4) Explore the utility of selected soil enzymes as indicators of L-POM quality.