Environmental Sustainability

Inefficient crop utilization of nutrients can reduce producers’ profitability, and nutrient loss from agricultural land has adverse ecological impacts on environmental quality. Nitrogen lost via leaching contaminates the groundwater supply. Soil-to-atmosphere nitrous oxide emissions contribute to global warming. Agricultural production is called for addressing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing water pollution. The growing call and need for sustainable agriculture have also brought deserved attention to soil and efforts to improve soil nutrient management to achieve environmental sustainability and world food security simultaneously. Our team strives to develop research and extension programs that support producers in achieving profitable production in an environmentally sustainable way.

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MSL ghs emissions and reducing water pollution

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a major greenhouse gas (GHG) and also the single most important ozone-depleting emission. Agricultural activities are responsible for 10-12% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions, and more than half of agricultural GHG emissions are derived from N2O. Agricultural N2O emissions are linked to soil management and application of N fertilizers. Leaching losses of N as nitrate (NO3-) can be a major limitation to crop production in irrigated and/or coarse-textured soils. Nitrate is a major groundwater contaminant. Nitrogen lost from fertilized fields through NO3- leaching can also contribute to N2O emissions by conversion of NO3- to N2O in a receiving aquatic ecosystem. Fertilizer-derived ammonia (NH3) losses also can be significant, particularly in drier agroecosystems. As volatilized NH3 from fertilized agricultural land is re-deposited to the ground, it can acidify soils, become a secondary source of N2O emission, and promote eutrophication of surface water bodies.

The soil column setup in our laboratory allows us to measure all three major N losses in soil systems under different management and weather conditions.

Coal char affects soil pH to reduce ammonia volatilization from sandy loam soil, Panday et al

A Laboratory Evaluation of Ammonia Volatilization and Nitrate Leaching following Nitrogen Fertilizer Application on a Coarse-Textured Soil, Peng et al

We used suction-cup lysimeters to collect potential drainage water in situ and measure the nitrate in it to estimate nitrate leaching under different scenarios and in varieties of cropping systems.

We measured daily GHG fluxes from cropland and rangeland using the static chamber method and also a portable Licor analyzer.