Alex Woodley

Producers are pushing the boundaries of traditional management strategies to achieve their high-yielding soybean goals. Best management practices help some soybean yields of NC to exceed 70bu/A while the historical statewide average yield of soybean mark 35 bu/A level. However, intensive agricultural practices may not provide long-term sustainability in increasing soybean yield levels. Achieving high yields and improving soil properties may differ substantially for each region of NC and require excellent field conditions and hence site-specific and climate-smart management strategies. Especially increasing need for agricultural products, and expensive and limited fertilizer inputs due to global issues require improvements in currently available management strategies like cover cropping and reduced or no tillage. Recently, management practices like those provide minimum disturbance, maximum soil coverage, economically profitable carbon farming, and restore or maintain soil health are critical. This research aims to develop site-specific cover crop and tillage practices where we can get the most benefit from interactions between cover crop and tillage applications to provide high economical return and enhanced soil health conditions. We will conduct plant and soil analysis including soil physical properties, microbial activities, N fixation, soybean yield, and biomass. We will also conduct an economic analysis and carbon credit evaluations. To conduct this project, we will hire a graduate student for 3 years co-sponsored with this grant and startup from department support by Crop and Soil Sciences Department. We are also requesting financial support for field supplies, travel costs, and soil and plant analysis associated with the project.

We will investigate the carryover effects of P fertilization on loblolly pine plantations and the effects on the soil microbial community.

(Project is in support of PSI) Greenhouse trials measuring GHG emissions and soil health parameters in corn using a variety of biological products. In addition, a GHG column experiment measuring high frequency GHG emissions.

The proposed project will use a chronosequence technique to evaluate changes in soil carbon storage and soil health indicators that occur over a 20 yr period from transition from conventional to organic management. Soil samples will be taken from on-farm sites that have been in organic management for a range of time and ensure and event distribution from year 0 to year 20. Soils from nearby abandoned or re-forested sites will be used as the regions maximum potential carbon accrual, while sites in year 0 or 1 of transition will be the theoretical starting point for carbon stock buildup. In addition to the on-farm trials, two intensive field experiments will be established at research stations on the coastal plains. These experiments will focus on carbon stock accrual within the first 3 years of transition from conventional to organic. Treatments will fall along a spectrum on management intensity, ranging from high intensity carbon building with organic amendments to business as usual production systems. This complementary study will allow inferences to be made around if active soil carbon building during transition can push the system further in the chronoseqenece and derive the potential benefits of increased soil health.

Cover crops are capable of mitigating many of the destabilizing factors influencing food and water security including climate change, pesticide resistance, depleted soils, competition among users for water, and decoupled nutrient cycles. Despite the myriad potential landscape-level benefits, cover crop adoption rates remain low. Cover crop use is a knowledge-intensive activity; farmers repeatedly cite management complexity and the lack of site- and system-specific information as barriers to adoption. This is further complicated by inconsistent management recommendations, and at times misinformation, resulting from a lack of coordination, communication, and awareness. Complex interactions in food production among intrinsic factors (climate and soil), management, and genetics exacerbate the issue. Social and political forces also add complexity via regulation and market forces. While there has been considerable research devoted to cover crops, there has been a failure to link impacts of climate, soil, genetics, and management decisions on cover crop performance. There is also a lack of transdisciplinarity and integration in research, education, and extension activities. We propose a transformation of US cropping systems through an information ecology to integrate cover crops and precision agriculture. An information ecology for precision sustainable agriculture would include, at minimum, open source software to reduce the cognitive overload of cover crop use by farmers; low cost hardware to crowdsource farm-scale data to inform cover crop research; and a knowledge commons for data sharing among transdisciplinary and cross-sector teams. An information ecology therefore has the potential to support long-term sustainability of US agricultural systems through the integration of cover crop research and practice.