Project Number: 5348-11120-002-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Apr 27, 2001
End Date: Apr 26, 2006

Objective:
1. Improve the production, stability, and sustainability of conservation cropping agroecosystems, and minimize their net greenhouse gas emissions relative to production, and 2. Investigate the biogeochemistry of C and N cycling and storage in those systems under different management scenarios, including strategies intended to optimize a balance of production and greenhouse gas emissions.

Approach:
Through watershed, field and plot sized studies and on-farm field research, optimum methods for soil management and carbon sequestration will be developed with crop rotations, amendments and conservation tillage methods. Field and laboratory studies will be conducted to assess the interactive effects of crop residue characteristics (e.g., chemical and physical attributes of alternative crops and rotations), decomposition processes, carbon storage and seed zone ecology and soil microbial populations, community structure and function. Field and laboratory studies will be conducted to assess the interactive effects of environmental and cultural variables on C and N cycling greenhouse gas exchange and the potential for surface and ground water contamination. Landscape level analysis of the factors controlling microbial mediated transformations of N will be conducted to develop a N budget for the region. Overall these efforts will lead to an understanding of the interactions among cropping system management decisions; the processes involved in the exchange of greenhouse gasses between the land and the atmosphere; and the potential for greenhouse gas mitigation. This research will enhance the performance of conservation tillage and cropping systems and the projections of climate change by developing informed management decisions in a changing environment. Formerly was 5348-12130-003-00D (04/04).

Project Team

Kennedy, Ann McCool, Donald - Don Smith, Jeffrey - Jeff

Project Annual Reports

FY 2003   FY 2002   FY 2001