MAKING SUSTAINABLE SOIL MANAGEMENT MEASURABLE
Methods for assessing influences on formation of soil organic carbon
Sustainable soil management is one of the most important tasks of agriculture. Healthy soils are the basis of regional food and feed production. They also help to better adapt to climate change and its consequences such as heat and drought. Increasing soil organic matter can also contribute to climate change mitigation by storing CO2 in soils.
But how can we measure the diverse functions of healthy soils? Adequate indicators are needed in order to make sustainable soil management measurable and reveal the key soil quality parameters such as soil organic matter content and stability, soil structure and soil biological activity.
The project aims to develop new soil quality indicators by combining an existing soil analysis method (electro-ultrafiltration, EUF) with modern spectroscopic methods. This should result in an efficient and comprehensive approach to soil assessment that will allow providing farmers with comprehensive information about their soil quality.
The spectroscopic indicators will be developed based on a dataset comprising different soils types with variable cultivation. The soil samples are taken from neighbouring fields of pioneer farms (=conservation tillage, diverse crop rotations, strong use of cover crops), standard farms and soils under natural vegetation. Using statistical methods, the spectroscopic data obtained from this sample are linked with directly measured soil quality parameters such as humus content, humus quality, soil structure and soil biological activity. The predictability of the indicators will then be assessed via experiments studying the use of natural soil additives from sugar and bioethanol production for soil quality improvement.
The results should allow us to make the potential of agricultural management for soil health improvement measurable and thus contribute to the development of sustainable food production systems.
Lead Researcher:
Priv.-Doz. Dr. Gernot Bodner
Deputy Head
Institute of Agronomy, Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna
+43 1 47654-95115
www.boku.ac.at
