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Umcompacted sides and soil lead to more robust plants

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Healthy soil is the foundation for a healthy America

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Researchers use satellite imagery and elevation data to better understand where an endangered plant grows, saving time, labor and money. They can also identify potential new habitats.

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Researchers recently released 40 varieties of early-flowering sorghum bred for use in cooler, more temperate areas. These early-flowering varieties of sorghum are critical for the spread of the crop to more new locations.

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Chemical use can leads unhealthy soil, fertilizer getting in watersheds, etc.

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Special collection presents the state of science for evaluating antibiotic resistance in agroecosystems

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As fresh water resources become scarce, one option for water-conscious farmers is to water crops with treated wastewater. This effluent is becoming a more popular option for applications that don’t require drinking-quality water. However, there are still questions about how the effluent interacts with and affects the rest of the ecosystem. Researchers set out to follow the environmental paths of pharmaceutical and personal care products found in effluent when it is used to spray irrigate wheat crops.

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Leaf litter, plant debris decomposed by nature into healthy soil

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New journal, Agricultural & Environmental Letters, supports rapid scientific communication.

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Leaving some of your plants and vegetables up over the winter is a good thing!

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Scientists hope to find “an ideal combination” of plant, endophyte, environment, and genetic interactions

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Innovation needed to meet 21st century challenges

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Microscopic films of water allow microbes to survive

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Andean beans (for example, red kidney beans) were overlooked by researchers because other beans were easier to breed. However, researchers took notice of the Andean bean. They recognized its potential to play a role in feeding the world.

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Changes in how land is used are inevitable. Those that work the land are making decisions about what rangeland to make into cropland--and vice versa. When it comes to these land use changes, the smartest decisions are driven by data. To assist, researchers have developed a "measurement approach...above dispute" for gathering land use data.

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Microbes, animals, still living in frozen soils

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Typically, organic growers plant pulse crops solely for their nitrogen-fixing ability and use them as green manure. The research compared this green manure technique to a traditional program of growing the beans to maturity for harvest and sale. This research has multiple benefits: saving money on the cost of fertilizer, and reducing the chances that excess nitrogen fertilizer will run off into nearby water bodies.

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Potting soils not “soils at all” explains soil scientist

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Creating effective bioretention systems requires understanding, and being able to design, a living system. This has been one of the issues preventing more communities from installing these green systems.The researchers evaluated soil mixtures for their ability to rapidly filter water, filter contaminants, and support plant growth.

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Crop scientists celebrating these nutritious, sustainable beans

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There’s more to an ecosystem than the visible plants and animals. The soil underneath is alive with vital microbes. They make sure nutrients from dead plant and animal material are broken down and made useable by other plants. This completes the process of nutrient cycling and carbon storage. Scientists are learning more about how important these microbes are. But how do changes in temperature and precipitation levels affect microbes? And will that affect carbon storage?

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Rituals, war paint, beauty, and health common uses of soils

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Every city has abandoned industrial sites. Encouraging life to return to these barren areas is a challenge. It requires a healthy topsoil for plants and animals to flourish. Cities, with their heavily compacted and often contaminated soils, often struggle to restore blighted spaces. Quality soil is necessary—but not abundant in cities. Enter biosolids.

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French fry lovers, beware! You may be exposed to a chemical more commonly associated with heavy industry than crispy fried potatoes. Fortunately, researchers are finding ways to reduce that exposure.

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Soil gives us artistic beauty and cultural richness

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Urban environments struggle with contaminated water running off, causing pollution and algal blooms. In response, cities often use natural landscapes of soil, grasses, and trees. These biofiltration systems capture and filter the runoff. Australian researchers measured how well tree species grew when watered with stormwater, and how well they took extra nutrients out of the stormwater.

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Soils can store carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere

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Urbanization is known to degrade the quality of soil. Researchers compared the soil under residential prairie gardens to the soil under the adjacent lawns to see if there were any differences.

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Manure management is serious business for a meat-hungry world. A single cow, depending on its size, can generate between 43 and 120 pounds of manure a day. Cow manure can be a low-cost fertilizer for farmers’ crops. But manure can also host antimicrobial resistant bacteria. Researchers have been testing creative ways to target antimicrobial resistance genes in manure.

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Good farming and property management keys to prevention

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Piled Higher and Deeper - an analogy for PhD

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In the recent sci-fi hit, The Martian, the main character, astronaut Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon), manages to grow potatoes on the planet with a mix of ingenuity, science, and a bit of Hollywood make-believe. Could it work?

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Soils help moderate global temperatures, store carbon

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Sometimes, the way forward is to look back. This may be the case with soybeans, whose wild relatives have higher levels of beneficial fatty acids.

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Working model has successfully increased crop yields on half the land area in trials

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Beavers, once valued for their fur, may soon have more appreciation in the Northeastern United States. There they are helping prevent harmful levels of nitrogen from reaching the area’s vulnerable estuaries. By creating ponds that slow down the movement of water, they aid in removing nitrogen from the water.

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Vigor, viability and dormancy are keys to the success of seeds

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Spring flooding. Droughts in July. These are the climate factors our nation’s growers must face each year. Scientists and farmers are creating public-private partnerships that address large scale improvements in agricultural resilience. One key area of focus? Soil health. To discuss this crucial topic, the Synergy in Science ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, MN will hold a “Public Private Partnerships to Improve Soil Health and Agronomic Resiliency” symposium. The symposium will be held Monday, November 16, 2015. Synergy in Science meeting is sponsored jointly by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America.

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Trees may be the overlooked workhorses of green infrastructure. In a study published in the Journal of Environmental Quality, these tree species were the best at removing storm water from bioswales and back into the atmosphere—a process known as water cycling.

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Important prize promotes development of cutting edge technologies

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Exploring soil beyond local borders helpful for growers, scientists

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Crop advisers identify features such as disease, nutrient deficiencies, and plant injury quickly and accurately in order to maximize field production. Undergraduate students of agronomy, crops, and soils will demonstrate this skill during the Crops Competition Showcase at the Synergy in Science ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, MN, on Monday, November 16, 2015.

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Wheat is vulnerable. Among the most damaging diseases that affect wheat crops across the world are rusts. These parasites cannot grow without infecting a host plant, and are responsible for some of the greatest destructions of crops in human history. Breeders have recently released a cultivar of winter wheat – TAM 305 – that is resistant to many of the rust fungi.

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Peat is currently a major component of many potting soil blends. Peat is the layered accumulation of partially degraded organic material over hundreds of years. But in some parts of the world, peatland habitats are shrinking. The harvest of peat may also release additional carbon, contributing to climate change. Efforts are underway to find suitable replacements—a considerable challenge given the airy, absorptive nature of peat that is ideal for plant growth.

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The “Upper Midwest Organic Agriculture Tour” planned at the Synergy in Science ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, MN, will highlight the Twin Cities’ thriving local and organic food system.

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Studying Martian soil may give insights into Earth surfaces as well

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Researchers find cover crop decomposition and nitrogen release vary with type of cover crop used and addition of poultry litter.

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Packing some pinto bean seeds would increase his chances of survival.

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Most of our food, many everyday objects that we use, depend on soil

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Collecting genetic information from crop wild relatives may preserve valuable traits but takes cooperation