Project Number: 3622-12610-001-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Jul 01, 2006
End Date: Jun 30, 2011

Objective:
Acquire new knowledge important for managing agricultural practices on spatially-variable soil landscapes and for assessing their impacts and sustainability. Develop and evaluate in-field sensing technologies and data interpretation methods for spatially- and temporally-variable soil properties important in assessing and managing soils and crops. Develop, implement at field scale, and assess innovative site-specific management systems for improved profitability and for water and soil quality.

Approach:
In this project, our interdisciplinary team will address key limitations to the overall goal of developing sustainable, site-specific soil and crop management systems. We will investigate spatially-variable soil-plant water relationships on hydrologically complex soils and the use of soil and rhizosphere biological measurements for soil quality assessment. We will explore the use of commercial sensor technology to provide estimates of soil hydraulic properties and of soil quality indicator variables. Building on our previous research, we will combine multiple soil sensor technologies into integrated, on-the-go tools for efficiently mapping within-field soil variability. We will investigate and compare analysis techniques available for understanding relationships between soil and landscape properties and crop yield, and will develop site-specific estimators of productivity that can help assess production risk. Building on our decade of experience in measuring and understanding within-field spatial variability, we will assess the profitability and water and soil quality of site-specific management systems. Management system evaluations will include on-farm research with active participation by crop producers and crop advisors. Products of this research project will include soil quality indicators, sensors for measurement of multiple soil properties, and agricultural and conservation practices specifically designed to deal with landscape variability.