Exploring a Dynamic Soil Information System Proceedings of a Workshop (2021) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
2 Keynote Presentations
2 Keynote Presentations
Pages 5-20
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 5... ...
INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR MANAGING SOILS Cornelius began his presentation with a quote from a 2017 article in Nature: "Science is informed by what it is possible to measure, and it takes a great leap forward when we can measure something new." That quote, Cornelius noted, echoes a statement made by Lord Kelvin in 1883: "When you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind." These quotes are particularly inspirational today, he said, given the many significant opportunities for measurement that are emerging from the convergence among physical, biological, chemical, and mathematical sciences. In particular, new technologies for measuring and monitoring soil offer unprecedented opportunities to improve agriculture and environmental health.
|
From page 6... ...
The devices can be used in a variety of environments for measuring nitrates, thus allowing growers to opti mize nitrogen application rates or breeders to identify crop varieties with improved nitrogen use efficiency. Researchers at LBNL and the Noble Research Institute have used electrical resistance tomography to measure soil and plant properties via electrodes inserted into the soil.
|
From page 7... ...
Such technologies, Cornelius said, offer "entire new mechanisms for detecting different soil properties and characteristics and correlating those with crop growth and development." These sensors can be used in a multitude of ways that are not possible with conventional sensors. At the landscape scale, these sensors can provide site-specific factors such as the landscape position and dynamic soil characteristics that correlate crop yield response to weather.
|
From page 8... ...
soil serves as a water reservoir, and, indeed, much of the variation in crop performance from one place to another is due to how well the soil supplies water to the plants; (2) soil provides the nutrients that the plants need to FIGURE 2-1 Scaling research technology informs policy and creates markets with climate impacts.
|
From page 9... ...
soil provides physical support for plants; (4) soil cycles carbon; and (5)
|
From page 10... ...
Furthermore, adding organic matter improves water storage capacity in all different soils. Thus, carbon is a major factor in the dynamics underlying soil quality.
|
From page 11... ...
However, the fields were switched to no-till/striptill, and the percentage of organic matter steadily increased to an average of 5.3 percent in 2015, an increase of 2.6 percent organic matter in the soil. The major change has been reduced tillage, although cover crops have been added in recent years.
|
From page 12... ...
Soil data can be leveraged to answer these questions. Databases are currently being applied to address these questions in two major ways: first, through continental-scale sampling efforts and data organization efforts, and second, through grassroots efforts to organize data around central scientific questions and the understanding of soil processes.
|
From page 13... ...
Fortunately, some of today's grassroots efforts to organize data around central scientific questions can provide data that stretch far back into the past and add another dimension to the data in the continental-scale databases. A dimension is added because these databases include data from not only ongoing sampling efforts, but also tap into the published literature, archived data, and past samples, with the overall objective being to use the assembled knowledge to understand mechanisms and processes that can help predict soil's response to various pressures and forces.
|
From page 14... ...
ISRaD is focused on radiocarbon in soils because it strongly constrains the global rates of soil carbon cycling, which in turn allows researchers to address some of their key questions, such as how climate change might affect carbon stocks and on what time scales. Radiocarbon naturally occurs in the atmosphere at very low levels, Hoyt explained, but the testing of thermonuclear weapons in the 1960s caused a sharp increase in global atmospheric concentrations of radiocarbon.
|
From page 15... ...
Summarizing her talk, Hoyt reiterated that continental-scale and grassroots database efforts must work together to offer the best chances to understand the impacts of climate change and management on soil carbon. In particular, large-scale continental efforts are valuable in providing snapshots of current conditions or those in the recent past, as well as, one assumes, future conditions, while grassroots database efforts are better poised to understand the changes over time by leveraging past data.
|
From page 16... ...
Smaller grassroots efforts also need access to dynamic part-time resources, such as ad hoc guidance on database development and long-term maintenance. DISCUSSION Opening the discussion session, Charles Rice, an organizing committee member from Kansas State University, noted that Hatfield, in his presentation, listed microbial activity as a top driver of carbon.
|
From page 17... ...
network could devote space at some of their sites to such calibration purposes. Jude Maul from USDA added via Slack that the LTAR working groups are currently developing data repositories and data collection guidelines that fit many of the soil testbeds' attributes mentioned (e.g., long-term, historical data; defined treatments; consistent data collection)
|
From page 18... ...
Erika Foster from Purdue University responded that the Nexus Institute (a col laboration between Purdue and the Universidad Nacional de San Agustín in Peru) has been updating a field soil health test kit, pairing some USDA soil quality tests with tests from the soil health kit created by Colorado State University researchers1 for use in remote sites in Peru.
|
From page 19... ...
Todd-Brown added that data annotation is another significant issue; better semantic tools are needed to describe soil data to a level accurate enough to construct databases without manually pulling annotations from the original paper. Irfan Ainuddin asked about the level of programming development expertise needed and the associated cost.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.