Science Breakthroughs to Advance Food and Agricultural Research by 2030 (2019) / Chapter Skim
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5 Soils
5 Soils
Pages 109-128
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From page 109... ...
. Future agricultural productivity to meet the needs of a growing world population can be possible only if the nation's fertile soils are maintained, which mandates protecting soils from erosion and degradation and efficiently managing vital crop nutrients.
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From page 110... ...
the combined use of novel sensing technologies, data analytics, precision plant breeding, and land management practices that significantly increase and optimize nutrient-use efficiency; and (3) supporting a healthy soil microbiome, which is instrumental to a wide range of soil ecosystem services, including nutrient production and bioavailability, breakdown of toxicants, and resilience to pests, pathogens, and other stressors such as climate variability and drought.
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From page 111... ...
Some agricultural practices, including conventional tillage, allowing cleared soil to remain uncovered, crop specialization (e.g., monoculture) with limited rotations or diversity, overuse of pesticides and fertilizers, and poor irrigation management, are associated with soil erosion and the breakdown of soil structure relative to the rate of soil formation (NRC, 2010; ITPS, 2015; NSTC, 2016)
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From page 112... ...
. In degraded soils or under continuous monoculture practices the beneficial members of the rhizosphere com 1 Also referred to as soil quality, soil health is the capacity of soils to function as living systems, with ecosystem and land use boundaries, to sustain plant and animal productivity, maintain or enhance water and air quality, and promote plant and animal health (FAO, 2008)
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Farmers rely heavily on chemical fertilizers to provide key plant macro- and micronutrients. Together with
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Too little nitrogen application leads to lower crop productivity, world hunger and malnutrition, and soil degradation (Sanchez and Swaminathan, 2005; Zhang et al., 2015; Lal and Stewart, 2017)
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These new sources and approaches are likely to enhance fertilizer use efficiency if accompanied by determining the "right" approaches of what, when, where, how much, and how fertilizers are applied. 3. OPPORTUNITIES From the perspective of the sustainable uses of soil, the objective is to keep soil healthy, to be in places where it is needed, and to maximize its ability to provide essential goods and services, whether that is in crop production, water filtration, or carbon sequestration.
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In the specific case of soil erosion, there is an opportunity to integrate high-resolution remote sensing, GPS, and GIS to survey soils and identify areas where soil losses are in need of specific conservation practices (Sahu et al., 2015)
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Therefore, an opportunity is to gain a better understanding of this rich resource of soil microbial biodiversity and to exploit beneficial functions of the soil microbiome to not only optimize crop productivity, but also to provide other beneficial ecosystem services, such as sequestration of organic carbon and increasing water retention. Greater understanding of the diversity and importance of microbes individually and collectively is now emerging, owing in part to the research field and tools of metagenomics3 and associated omics technologies (Biteen et al., 2016)
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From page 118... ...
It is too early to judge the success of this unified strategy; however, the committee supports the call for increased funding in microbiome science to support these potentially important advances in knowledge. 3.3 Integrating Social Sciences on Technology Adoption and Farmer Engagement into Soil Health Research Research on soil loss and sustainability is fairly advanced.
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From page 119... ...
provides a comprehensive review of research on each of these barriers and emphasizes that their influence on farmer decision making varies according to geographic, economic, and social contexts. A missing element, however, is research on engagement -- involving farmers in development of tools and methods that reduce soil loss and promote soil health, and in the development of education and policy incentives to support technology adoption.
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4.3 Interactions Between Soil Ecosystems and Climate Climate change will impact soil organic carbon flux to the atmosphere and cycling of other nutrients. Although these functions are vitally important for plant growth and sustainability of life on our planet, the mechanistic details are largely unknown.
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Thus, to fully understand, predict, and harness beneficial microbes for agricultural purposes, more research is needed across several different science disciplines, including soil microbiology and microbial ecology, combined with computational biology and advanced omics and imaging technologies. This multidisciplinary approach is necessary to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underpinning soil–microbe–plant interactions and to determine how to optimize beneficial interactions to improve agricultural production.
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to translate data into meaningful knowledge. A common infrastructure with open access could be similar to the National Cancer Institute's Genomic Data Commons4 or the Human Cell Atlas Data Coordination Platform.5 A centralized communitydriven platform for depositing and sharing data does not yet exist for the soil sciences, and this holds the field back.
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through the integration of novel sensing technolo gies, data analytics, precision plant breeding, and land management practices. • Create more productive and sustainable crop production systems by identifying and harnessing the soil microbiome's capability to produce nutrients, increase nutrient bioavailability, and improve plant resilience to environmental stress and disease.
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2008. An international technical workshop Invest ing in Sustainable Crop Intensification: The Case for Improving Soil Health.
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2004. Soil carbon sequestration impacts on global climate change and food security.
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2014a. Long-term effects of cover crops on crop yields, soil organic carbon stocks and sequestration.
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Bonn, Germany: Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. Available at https://global-land-outlook.squarespace.com/the outlook/#the-bokk (accessed July 6, 2018)
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2016. Projected loss of soil organic carbon in temperate agricultural soils in the 21st century: Effects of climate change and carbon input trends.
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