Progress 10/01/09 to 09/30/14
Outputs
Target Audience: Target Audience Academics and professionals in soil and water quality management in arid and semi-arid zones worldwide; growers and landscape managers in the Intermountain and Western US. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Opportunities The students under this project were provided numerous opportunities for professional skill development. They were provided opportunities for lab and field research skill development, were used as teaching assistants in general soils and soil chemistry courses at Utah State University, provided support for attendance and presentation delivery at regional and national scientific meetings allowing them to disseminate their research, obtain valuable colleague feedback on their efforts and develop extensive professional connections in their field of study. The network of professional connections has resulted in one student now working as a faculty member at Oregon State University and the other as a soil scientist and researcher for a private consulting firm. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Dissemination Research products were disseminated through peer-reviewed journal articles in leading scientific publications in fruit production and soil science including the Journal of the American Pomological Society, the Soil Science Society of America Journal, and Geoderma. Also published were one MS thesis and a PhD dissertation at Utah State University. Numerous oral and poster presentations were given by the students at local regional and national professional scientific meetings including the annual meetings of the Western Society of Soil Science, The Soil Science Society of America, and the American Geophysical Union. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Plan of Work Final report -- no further plan going forward under this project.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Accomplishments There were a number of accomplishments associated with the graduate student research conducted under this project. These accomplishment resulted in several awards for the graduate students involved, reflecting the quality of the work. Under this project a new salinity tolerance screening technique and apparatus for greenhouse use was developed. The apparatus produces a near-continuous gradient in irrigation water and soil salinity that can be used in highly replicated, rapid screening of crop or ornamental plants (or varieties or cultivars within a species) over a pre-determined range of salinity. The paper describing this new technique was awarded the graduate student paper of the year award by the American Pomological Society. Three additional peer-reviewed journal papers from another graduate student's research were published on the measurement and calibration of remotely sensed soil salinity using electromagnetic induction. The calibration methods we developed, employ a new mathematical tool for such analyses not previously applied to soil science. The method (quantile regression) is frequently employed in medical science to determine the contribution of various groups to observed data of human characteristics such as height, weight, etc., and helps to quantify the weightings of various stata in the data to the mean observation. The application of this technique to understanding the contribution of subsurface soil layers to the conductivity of the bulk soil at the surface, is the seminal publication on the technique and a significant contribution to the science. The PhD student responsible for the research was awarded several individual paper awards at professional scientific meetings and was chosen as the College of Agriculture's Graduate Researcher of the Year in 2013. Other papers by this student demonstrate the biases that various lab measurements of soil salinity can potentially impose on the validity of ground truth, direct sampling results and the calibration of remote sensing techniques and then applies the calibration and remote sensing processes to determine the sources and loading of contaminate solutes in a sensitive wetland preserve in the Uintah Basin of Utah. The research work under this project should prove to be important advances in plant salinity tolerance assessment and the calibration of remotely sensed, electromagnetic induction measurements of soil salinity, thereby improving the accuracy of remote areal assessments of the extent and severity of soil salinization and its potential impact on plant-soil-water interactions in salt-affected regions of the world.
Publications
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Progress 10/01/12 to 09/30/13
Outputs
Target Audience: Academics and professionals in soil and water quality management in arid and semi-arid zones worldwide; growers and landscape managers in the Intermountain and Western US. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? This project provided for the continued support and professional development of a PhD student performing the research and writing the journal articles for publication. Five papers from this students dissertation have been prepared and three were published, or accepted for publication in 2013, thereby providing excellent opportunity for the student to develop and refine his scientific communication skills. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? The findings of this research have been communicated through scientific journal articles in top-tier academic journals and at scientific conferences, notably the annual meetings of the American Geophyisical Union. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? 1. Develop farm-level irrigation strategies to address water quantity and quality problems. The plan of work for 2014 includes continued work to finalize the publications from the PhD students research on this project. The final two papers are critically important to the goals of the project in that they demonstrate the application of the remote sensing techniques to developing databases of soil conditions in two very different areas in Utah to formulate baseline soil physical and chemical conditions maps useful in determining the effects of landforms and historical soil and water management on those conditions. Such geo-located data will be useful as parameterization and validation data for regional water management models, allowing for the areal assessment of the impacts of changes in soil and water management policies and/or procedures, on short- and long-term soil productivity.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. Develop farm-level irrigation strategies to address water quantity and quality problems. This project resulted in the publishing of two peer-reviewed academic journal articles on the measurement and calibration of remotely sensed soil salinity. The article on the calibration methods we developed, employs a new mathematical tool for such analyses not previously applied to soil science. The method (quantile regression) is frequently employed in medical science to determine the contribution of various groups to observed data of human characteristics such as height, weight, etc., and helps to quantify the weightings of various stata in the data to the mean observation. The application of this technique to understanding the contribution of subsurface soil layers to bulk conductivity of the bulk soil at the surface, is the seminal publication on the technique and a significant contribution to the science. The other paper demonstrates the biases that various lab measurements of soil salinity can potentially impose on the validity of ground truth direct sampling results on the calibration of remote sensing techniques. The two papers together should prove to be important advances in the calibration of remotely sensed, electromagnetic induction measurements of soil salinity, thereby improving the accuracy of remote areal assessments of the extent and severity of soil salinization.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Amakor, X., Cardon, G., Symanzik, J., Jacobson, A. (2013). A New Electromagnetic Induction Calibration Model for Estimating Salinity in Calcareous Soils. Soil Science Society of America, 77(3), 792-799.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Amakor, X. N., Jacobson, A., Cardon, G. (2013). Improving Estimates of Soil Salinity from Saturation Paste Extracts in Calcareous Soils. Soil Science Society of America, 77(3), 985-1000.
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Progress 01/01/12 to 09/30/12
Outputs
Target Audience: Utah water and soil users associations and conservation districts; regional NRCS soil and water programs staffs; national and international water and soil management researchers and practitioners. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Three additional papers covering the comparison of laboratory salinity analysis procedures, and the remote determination of solute sources in the Pariette Wetland in the Uinta Basin of Utah, are drafted and will be submitted for review in 2013. The PhD graduate student responsible for this research will also be completing his dissertation which will be published in 2013.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Our journal article on Quantile Regression techniques (frequently used in the medical sciences) applied to the correlation of remotely sensed conductivity and soil salinity (accepted by the Soil Science Society of America Journal) is the first paper of its kind. The paper stands to be the seminal paper on this technique and should form the basis of much continued research and application. It provides a new regression analysis technique that does away with the problems previously encountered with statistical techniques forced to rely on the assumption of normality in data and error distribution, even in highly variable field settings. Such assumptions of normal data and error distribution in previously used correlation techniques often present challenges to formulating useful correlations of remotely sensed data and soil properties. This has been particularly true in the past for soil salinity which can be variably distributed over both area and depth in the field. Our research is the first to provide soil scientists with a robust regression technique that is independent of the assumption of data normality, and further, allows for regional calibration of remote sensing techniques over a variety of field conditions.
Publications
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Progress 01/01/11 to 12/31/11
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Outputs for 2011 were one presentation on the use of remotely sensed soil electrical conductivity to track the sourcing and fate of soil solutes in an irrigated basin (made at the annual conference of the American Geophysical Union; 5-9 Dec., 2011, San Francisco CA) and one PhD dissertation on the relationship between drought and salinity tolerance in turf grass and ornamental tree species. The American Geophysical Union is the top professional society in the geosciences and the presentation of our research work to this audience is prestigious and significant. PARTICIPANTS: Xystus Amakor, PhD Graduate Student, and Dr. Astrid Jacobson, Assistant Professor of Soil Chemistry, Plants Soils and Climate Department, Utah State University (soil salinity research); Brent Black, USU Extension Fruit Specialist; USDA-NRCS regional staff, Logan Utah; Cooperator-growers in Cache and Box Elder Counties; Clark Israelsen, Cache County Extension agricultural agent; Mike Pace, Box Elder County Extension agricultural agent; USDA-CSREES. Nisa Leksungnoen, PhD Graduate Student, and Roger Kjelgren, Professor of Horticultural Science, Plants, Soils and Climate Department, Utah State University (salinity effects on turf and trees). TARGET AUDIENCES: Utah water and soil users associations and conservation districts; regional NRCS soil and water programs staffs; national and international water and soil management researchers and practioners. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
The presentation of the research to the American Geophysical Union contributed to a greater understanding of how remotely sensed soil salinity data can be used to evaluate the sourcing and fate of solutes in irrigated basins. Such research is needed world-wide in salt-affected arid and semi-arid areas of the world where solutes mobilized from sedimentary rock (commonly found in such regions) are often the source of water and soil pollutants in these areas (such as Selenium and other oxyanions). These pollutants can pose significant, negative environmental impacts and our research contributes to a greater understanding of how the interaction of soil water management and sources of salinity affect the mobilization of such pollutants. The PhD student research on turf and tree salinity and drought tolerance contributes to the knowledge base needed to develop criteria for selection of candidate species for use in water-wise landscaping and in saline environments world-wide.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/10 to 12/31/10
Outputs
OUTPUTS: A MS student completed his degree in June 2010, culminating extensive work on remotely mapping soil salinity conditions in the Bear River Basin of Utah. A map showing the extent and severity of soil salinity conditions was produced for the Cache County portion of the basin as derived from data on over 60 field sites owned by over 35 cooperator growers distributed throughout the county. A compendium of maps of individual farmer fields was also compiled, and individual maps of farmer fields disseminated to the cooperators in return for their contribution to the research. A presentation on the results of this study was presented at the W-2190 USDA multi-state research committee meeting in Fort Collins CO in October, 2010. PARTICIPANTS: Brent Black, USU Extension Fruit Specialist; Austin Hawks, MS graduate student; USDA-NRCS regional staff, Logan Utah; Cooperator-growers in Cache and Box Elder Counties; Clark Israelsen, Cache County Extension agricultural agent; Mike Pace, Box Elder County Extension agricultural agent; USDA-CSREES. TARGET AUDIENCES: Utah water and soil users associations and conservation districts; regional NRCS soil and water programs staffs; national and international water and soil management researchers and practioners. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
A baseline soil salinity survey is now in place derived from a combination of remotely sensed soil salinity data and ground-truth correlations with measured data. This salinity inventory offers modelers and others concerned with forecasting the impact of drought and soil resource conditions on crop production sustainability in the region. Moreover, growers have been introduced to rapid measurement and monitoring techniques for tracking changes in soil salinity conditions using electromagnetic induction. The growers understand the nature of the measurements and their application, and as a result, have been very supportive of the research. As a result of the presentation made at the W-2190 multi-state research committe meeting noted in the Outputs section of this report, similar research work in Texas (Univ TX, El Paso) has been undertaken with guidance from our project. We are also in continued consultation with similar work in the Arkansas River Basin of Colorado, and regularly share improvements in methodologies, thereby enhancing the impact of the work done here, and improving the potential of the work at USU to provide a base of knowledge as input for modelers and decision makers in the state and region.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/09 to 12/31/09
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Historical plant salt tolerance work focused on salt chemistries very different from Utah's calcareous and gypsiferous soils. In an effort to better determine the adaptability of crop varieties and cultivars for use in Utah conditions, it was deemed necessary to begin an effort to screen candidate plants for their tolerance to high calcium, saline conditions. We developed a fully automated, drip irrigation, liner-gradient dosing system designed to deliver a large number of salinity treatment levels simultaneously. The dosing system is comprised of two parallel drip laterals injected with plant nutrient solution and either irrigation water or salinity treatment stock solution. The total amount of water delivered at any point along the system was identical, but the mix of saline and non-saline water was variable. The result was a highly linear dosing system with 15 treatment levels. The apparatus was used in a research project to screen two cultivars of strawberry for production in Utah. We also undertook a basin-scale salinity mapping effort in the Bear River basin of Utah. This effort was designed to provide a detailed visualization of the spatial distribution of soil salinity from which objective measures of the impact of salinity on crop production and regional economics could be made, the impacts of water allocation policies could be tracked, the impact of regional drought cycles on soil salinity and crop production could be estimated, or modeling any number of other regional concerns. The map serves as input data and baseline conditions to help answer such questions and provides objective, quantifiable information on the extent and severity of regional saline conditions. Future work will extend this mapping effort to additional irrigated areas in Utah. The work under this project was presented in several scientific settings and through individual salinity field map products provided to individual cooperator growers on the project. Scientific presentations were made at the Western Nutrient Management Conference held in Salt Lake City, UT, March 4-5, 2009; at the Western Society of Soil Science Meeting held June 9-10, 2009, in Fort Collins, CO; and at the American Society of Agronomy/Soil Science Society of America joint annual conference held in Pittsburgh, PA, November 1-5, 2009. An estimated 300 scientists and soil management professionals were reached by these presentations. Austin Hawks, the MS graduate student on the study, has been working closely with these research programs to implement the apparatus and help it work for the applications designed for it. These additional studies include salinity tolerance screening studies at Oregon State University and Utah State University on vegetable crops and native horticultural selections to be used in water-wise landscapes. The research paper published by Austin Hawks, the MS graduate student on the project, won the First Place U.P. Hedrick Award from the American Pomological Society. Austin's poster presentation on this work also won second place in the graduate student paper competition at the Western Society of Soil Science held in Fort Collins, CO June 9-10, 2009. PARTICIPANTS: Brent Black, USU Extension Fruit Specialist; Austin Hawks, MS graduate student; USDA-NRCS regional staff, Logan Utah; Cooperator-growers in Cache and Box Elder Counties; Clark Israelsen, Cache County Extension agricultural agent; Mike Pace, Box Elder County Extension agricultural agent; USDA-CSREES. TARGET AUDIENCES: Utah water and soil users associations and conservation districts; regional NRCS soil and water programs staffs; national and international water and soil management researchers and practioners. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
As a result of the presentations on the salinity screening apparatus developed for this project, three research programs in the western US have now adapted the apparatus for similar research work. The apparatus is also scheduled to be used by a researcher investigating the N use efficiency of crop varieties chosen for organic production systems. The flexibility of the research apparatus for use in an endless number of studies into dose-response effects on plant growth and performance has also garnered the attention and accolades of the scientific community at large. This research has resulted in immediate adoption of the methodolgy we developed by the scientific community and it is expected to form the foundation for many similar studies in the future. Thirty cooperating growers assisting in the basin-scale salinity inventory work under this project were provided with intensive salinity distribution maps of their fields that were included in the survey. This was done as an incentive for their participation in the study and provided us an opportunity to discuss with each of them the challenges they face with the management of salinity and productivity.
Publications
- Austin Hawks, Grant Cardon and Brent Black 2009. Comparing Strawberry Salt Tolerance Using A Low Volume Near-Continuous Gradient Dosing System. Journal of the American Pomological Society 63(4):136-141.
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Progress 01/01/08 to 12/31/08
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Primary effort on this project continued under CSREES funding for the Utah Drought Management Initiative at Utah State University. Under this umbrella project, tasks included a large-scale mapping effort to determine the extent and severity of salinization of agricultural soils in the major river basins of Utah, and the development and implementation of a crop salinity tolerance program for Utah soil and water chemistry conditions. The work on the low-volume dosing system for plant performance screening and salinity mapping work in the Bear River basin resulted in an award-winning student poster presentation at the 2008 Utah Spring Runoff Conference held in Logan, Utah, March 31 and April 1, 2008. Over 100 conference attendees were introduced to the work and taught the value of soil salinity management under semi-arid, drought-prone agricultural settings. The MS student on these projects, Austin Hawks, was awarded a cash prize and certificate. Austin will complete his Master of Science degree at Utah State University in August, 2009. Initial mapping work has now been completed in the Cache County area of the Bear River Basin. Cooperator growers provided access to 40 fields in the region covering about 1500 to 2000 acres of agricultural land under irrigation from the Bear River. Analysis of calibration soil samples which will provide the basis for conversion of remotely sensed bulk soil electrical conductivity (EC) to saturation EC values is now under way. Preliminary maps are being constructed and reconciled for data integrity and consistency. Final maps are due to be released in the fall of 2009. A second graduate student has been hired to continue the mapping work in the Sevier River basin. PARTICIPANTS: Brent Black, USU Extension Fruit Specialist; Austin Hawks, MS graduate student; USDA-NRCS regional staff, Logan Utah; Cooperator-growers in Cache and Box Elder Counties; Clark Israelsen, Cache County Extension agricultural agent; Mike Pace, Box Elder County Extension agricultural agent; USDA-CSREES. TARGET AUDIENCES: Utah water and soil users associations and conservation districts; regional NRCS soil and water programs staffs; national and international water and soil management researchers and practioners. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
An innovative apparatus has been constructed for automated, low-volume, high-frequency soil dosing of salinity which allows rapid evaluation of crop types and varieties for Utah-specific salinity tolerance. The apparatus was successfully implemented in the screening of strawberry varieties for use in Utah soil conditions. Seven candidate varieties representing a broad sampling of breeding stocks from across the country were first obtained and grown out in traditional, hand-applied salinity treatments to choose the highest and lowest tolerance varieties for more rigorous testing with the automated system. Detailed plant growth, soil and leachate salinity data were obtained with the new automated system, effectively demonstrating its function and utility. A complete description of the automated system with results from the strawberry salinity tolerance screening study has been written and is now in review for submission to a peer-reviewed journal in fruit production.
Publications
- A.Hawks and G.E. Cardon 2009. Salinity and Tolerance Screening in Utah Agriculture. Proceedings, Utah Spring Runoff Conference, 2008.
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Progress 01/01/07 to 12/31/07
Outputs
OUTPUTS: This was a new project initiated in 2007. Funding for this work was obtained through grants from the USDA-CSREES special grants programs under the Utah Drought Management Initiative. Though there is ample evidence of saline soil and water conditions in Utah, there is not sufficient understanding of the distribution, extent and severity of salt-affected soil and water resources in the major watersheds of the state. Without such inventories, and spatial mapping of such conditions, one cannot track the effects of drought on soil and water quality, nor predict the effect of long-term drought on salt-impacted water use, plant growth, water balance and economics in these watersheds. Additionally, traditional plant salt tolerance data, from which salinity effects on plant growth and performance are generally predicted, have been developed in California, Israel, and Australia under very different soil, climate and salt chemistry conditions than are found in Utah. There is a
significant need for developing new standards and trends for basic salt tolerance screening of the major landscape and crop plants under Utah's semi-arid, gypsiferous and calcareous soil and water conditions. This information is critical to tying the data on the distribution of soil and water salinity, to regional water use, plant productivity and land use sustainability. In the late summer and fall of 2007, mapping of surface- and ground water, and soil salinity from selected locations within the Bear River Basin, Utah, was initiated from geo-located water and soil samples and remotely-sensed electrical conductivity data. The physical samples are currently being analyzed in the Utah State University Analytical Laboratory for total dissolved solids (water) and electrical conductivity (water and soil extracts). Remote sensing data is being obtained using a Geonics EM38 Electromagnetic Induction Probe (Geonics, Inc., Ontario Canada) coupled with a Trimble Ag-GPS system (Trimble
Navigation, Ltd., Sunnyvale, CA) and an Allegro field computer (Juniper Systems, Inc., Logan, UT). Calibration of the remotely-sensed data will be conducted against the physical soil samples results. The corrected salinity data will then be mapped using ARC-GIS software (ESRI, Redlands, CA). Since the summer of 2007, plant salt tolerance work has also been conducted in the USU Research Greenhouses under a carefully controlled growth medium experiment. Fruit and vegetable crop seedlings and fruit rootstocks of chosen species are being established under non-saline conditions followed by exposure to preset levels of soil water salinity using surrogate irrigation waters from representative gypsiferous and other sources in Utah. Plant growth, yield and quality components (such as protein content, fruit grade, BRIX and others) are also being measured. Plant response curves will then be developed to evaluate each species for growth in Utah-specific conditions.
PARTICIPANTS: Brent Black, USU Extension Fruit Specialist; Austin Hawks, MS graduate student; USDA-NRCS regional staff, Logan Utah; Cooperator-growers in Cache and Box Elder Counties; Clark Israelsen, Cache County Extension agricultural agent; Mike Pace, Box Elder County Extension agricultural agent; USDA-CSREES.
TARGET AUDIENCES: Utah water and soil users associations and conservation districts; regional NRCS soil and water programs staffs; national and international water and soil management researchers and practioners.
Impacts
Maps indicating the extent and severity of soil and water salinization will allow the calculation of crop yield reductions due to salt in the major river basins of Utah. Moreover, the predictions of the degradation of productivity given changes in water quality and quantity due to regional climate change, extended drought, changes in water allocation and management, or a number of other factors, can be calculated using available watershed models and the mapped baseline condition as input. The impact potential of these maps is difficult to determine, but conservative estimates indicate that current soil and water salinization in the lower Bear and Seveir River basins account for between 10% and 30% reduction in the yield of alfalfa and corn grown within them. This represents losses of upwards of $250 for alfalfa and $300 for corn grain per acre of salt-affected irrigated farmland per year. The maps of soil and water salinity generated in this study will allow the
comparison of the cost of remedial to their benefit.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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