Josh Heitman

Bio

https://heitman.wordpress.ncsu.edu/
https://casm.cals.ncsu.edu

Soil is the interface between biological, atmospheric, and geologic systems. Movement of heat, water, and chemical in soil impacts the terrestrial environment at nearly every scale. Research efforts focus on understanding principles of this movement through laboratory and field experiments, development of new measurement techniques, and numerical modeling.
Major research goals are to detail soil water and energy budgets for evaporation and evapotranspiration, improve efficiency and services of agricultural, urban, and marginal soils, and develop theoretical frameworks and measurement systems to quantify soil processes.

Extension Publications

Publications

• Adjusting seeding rate across soybean planting date and maturity in the Southeast United States , CROP SCIENCE (2025)
• Biocrusts regulate surface soil deformations during freezing-thawing and wetting-drying cycles in cold-winter drylands , COLD REGIONS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (2025)
• Biocrusts-induced changes of surface soil rheological properties and their connections to biofilaments and extracellular polymeric substances in abandoned farmlands , SOIL & TILLAGE RESEARCH (2025)
• Emerging issues and research opportunities in vadose zone processes , VADOSE ZONE JOURNAL (2025)
• Enriched stable hydrogen and oxygen isotopes in biocrusts unveil their critical roles in mediating ecohydrological processes of drylands , PLANT AND SOIL (2025)
• Fraise mowing and hollow-tine aerification impact bermudagrass surfaces , CROP FORAGE & TURFGRASS MANAGEMENT (2025)
• Fraise mowing impacts soil physical properties of bermudagrass surfaces , AGRONOMY JOURNAL (2025)
• Modeling compaction effects on soil water retention across the full moisture range: Calibration and validation , VADOSE ZONE JOURNAL (2025)
• Neural network estimation of thermal conductivity across full saturation for various soil types , COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE (2025)
• The impact of residue and cover crop management on soil water and temperature regimes in a loam soil in North Dakota , AGROSYSTEMS GEOSCIENCES & ENVIRONMENT (2025)