Soil Health Practices in Kansas - KEC meeting
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Staff from Kansas Department of Health and the Environment, along with ORISE Lena Wang based at ORD-CPHEA-PESD, were invited to present the initial findings of their ROAR project at the annual 2024 Environmental Conference at KDHE (Kansas Department of Health and Environment). Scott Satterthwaite will be presenting in person along with PESD and ORISE Lena Wang presenting virtually, to discuss the initial findings of the ROAR project focused on connecting soil health practices and potential for reducing nitrate export to groundwater and surface water in northeastern Kansas. The presentation focuses on project goals, sampling design, field sampling, lab analyses, initial soil health test results and next steps. Initial results indicate that soil health practices increased microbially available carbon and nitrogen, which in turn may decrease potential for nitrate leaching.
The team conducted a study to collect soils from eight farm fields and measure a host of soil health metrics, including water stable aggregates, microbial assays, soil extractable carbon and nitrogen forms, using a grad-based sampling approach to cover large fields. The presentation focuses on project goals, sampling design, field sampling, lab analyses, initial soil test results and next steps. Fields with a history of cover crops and no till agriculture appeared to have higher organic matter, available carbon and organic nitrogen, which are beneficial for soil health,. Fields with these soil health practices also had lower amounts of extractable nitrate and a lower potential for nitrate leaching. Early results from these eight fields indicate the utility of these measures to examine the effects of soil health practices.