Soil Health Practices in Kansas
Citation:
Nusz, E., C. Janssen, J. Compton, R. Brooks, L. Wang, R. Coulombe, S. Satterthwaite, A. Miller, M. Beezhold, AND J. Negrych. Soil Health Practices in Kansas. 2024 Kansas WRAPS meeting, Wichita, KS, June 04, 2024.
Impact/Purpose:
Presentation on R7 ROAR project at Kansas Watershed Meeting, June 4, 2024 - Staff from Region 7 and ORD-CPHEA-PESD will present on their ROAR project initial findings at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Kansas WRAPS program (Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy). Emily Nusz in the Water Division in EPA Region 7 will be presenting in person along with PESD’s Lena Wang and Jana Compton virtually, to discuss the initial findings of the ROAR project focused on connecting soil health practices and potential for groundwater and surface water nitrate contamination in northeastern Kansas. The presentation focuses on project goals, sampling design, field sampling, lab analyses, initial soil health test results and next steps. Initial results indicate that soil health practices increased microbially available carbon and nitrogen, and may decrease potential for nitrate leaching.
Description:
Drinking water nitrate contamination is a significant economic and public health concern in The Great Plains, with few tested best practices for improving source water quality. This project seeks to establish a monitoring framework for quantifying the benefits of soil health practices for groundwater nitrate mitigation, by comparing among established fields varying in tilling, fertilizer and cover crop practices. This presentation shares the initial findings of the ROAR project “Soil Health Practices' Impact on Groundwater Nitrate Contamination” focused on connecting soil health practices and potential for groundwater and surface water nitrate contamination in northeastern Kansas. The team conducted a study to collect soils from eight farm fields and measure a host of soil health metrics, including water stable aggregates, microbial assays, soil extractable carbon and nitrogen forms, using a grad-based sampling approach to cover large fields. The presentation focuses on project goals, sampling design, field sampling, lab analyses, initial soil test results and next steps. Fields with a history of cover crops and no till agriculture appeared to have higher organic matter, available carbon and organic nitrogen, which are beneficial for soil health. Fields with these soil health practices also had lower amounts of extractable nitrate and a lower potential for nitrate leaching. Early results from these eight fields indicate the utility of these measures to examine the effects of soil health practices.