Project Overview
Annual Reports
Commodities
- Agronomic: corn, cotton, peanuts, rye, soybeans, wheat
- Vegetables: sweet potatoes, broccoli, tomatoes
- Animals: bovine
- Animal Products: dairy
Practices
- Animal Production: pasture fertility, grazing - rotational
- Crop Production: conservation tillage
- Education and Training: demonstration, display, extension, on-farm/ranch research
- Farm Business Management: budgets/cost and returns
- Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity, indicators
- Pest Management: biological control, chemical control, competition, cultural control, field monitoring/scouting, integrated pest management, mulches - killed
- Production Systems: agroecosystems, holistic management, transitioning to organic
- Soil Management: green manures, organic matter, soil analysis, nutrient mineralization, soil quality/health
Abstract:
An interdisciplinary research project compared soil attributes in agricultural systems: a best management practice (BMP) system; an integrated crop/animal system; an organic production system; a forestry/woodlot system; and a successional ecosystem. Soil nematode population density maxima for most trophic groups were in July of each year. Three species of beneficial insect-parasitic nematodes, Steinernema carpocapsae, S. glaseri and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, and two insect-pathogenic fungi, Beauveria and Metarhizium, were isolated from the site. Cumulative abundance of soil microarthropods was greater in the organic, successional and BMP no-till treatments than in the Woodlot, BMP conventional till and pasture plots. There was a trend for greater soil respiration (evolved CO2) and more rapid water infiltration in the organic compared to conventional systems. Likewise, penetrometer resistance, a measure of soil compaction, tended to be greater in the conventional system. Carbon and N availability were consistently and significantly lower in grassland, forest and successional systems than in the two agricultural systems, whereas C availability was higher in the grassland and organic soils. High C availability and low N in grasslands significantly affected soil microbes and led to higher microbial biomass C:N ratios and lower N mineralization, suggesting a shift of microbial community composition.
Project objectives:
1) develop indicators of soil quality for assessing ecological shifts related to sustainability (e.g. biotic and abiotic factors associated with low pest populations, increased crop health and/or tolerance to pest damage, and crop yield/quality)
2 ) determine the impact of agricultural system on selected soil organisms and soil chemical/physical indicators