Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Cotton is the main crop grown on the Texas High Plains. With diminishing water resources in the region, continuous cotton may not be the most sustainable or profitable option for producers in the region. Incorporating crop rotations with grain sorghum could be a solution to help mitigate some of our greenhouse gas emissions, reduce erosion, and increase profitability. Increasing regenerative agriculture is important for our community and region due to the economic impact that agriculture has in the region and the need for food, fuel, and fiber for the general population.The project spans the Texas High Plains and Rolling Plains to help reach as broad of footprint as possible. The project will evaluate water use, greenhouse gas emissions, soil health, and the overall agronomic and economic productivity of these systems.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
25%
Developmental
25%
Goals / Objectives
The project goal is to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of farming operations with the adoption of regenerative management practices including sorghum-cotton rotations and no-tillage across the Texas Great Plains region. Water is the most limiting factor for crop production in the region due to the decreasing quantity and quality of water resources Report Date 03/20/2023 Page 1 of 3 United States Department of Agriculture Project Initiation Accession No. Project No. TEX06718 that are severely restrained by frequent drought conditions and climate change. Continuous cotton monoculture is most common across the semi-arid Texas High Plains which has been the most profitable option for nearly a century. However, this practice is not environmentally sustainable. A better understanding of how regenerative management practices including sorghum-cotton rotational systems affect soil health and environmental sustainability, as well as agronomic and economic output, is essential to optimizing agroecosystems on the Texas Great Plains. The primary focus of this proposal is to improve economic and environmental (soil and water conservation, carbon sequestration, and greenhouse gas emissions) sustainability of farming operations with sorghum-cotton rotational systems and successfully scale the research impacts to semi-arid regions across the nation as water resources continue to decrease better preparing farmers for a transition to dryland agriculture production.
Project Methods
To achieve the proposed objectives, we will utilize two existing research locations in the High Plains of Texas at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Glover Dryland Research Center (Lubbock, Lubbock Country, TX) and TRP at the Texas A&M AgriLife Chillicothe Research Station (Chillicothe, Hardeman County, TX). Additionally, we will implement a new research trial in the THP at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Lubbock Research and Demonstration Farm (Lubbock, Lubbock County, TX) based on results generated from the existing trials. The existing and new research trials allow us to replicate treatments across a variety of environments, irrigation regimes, soil types, and textural classes. Cotton, sorghum, and winter wheat are the primary row crops grown in both regions and on both soil textures. The practices most suitable for each region will be evaluated in their respective locations.To better understand how agronomic management practices influence soil water dynamics, we will monitor soil water in each cropping system throughout the duration of the experiment. Soil water dynamics are important parameters in determining the sustainability of agricultural management practices in semi-arid environments, especially in the face of irrigation decline and climate variability. Soil water will be determined via year-round monthly sampling using a fieldcalibrated CPN 503 neutron probe (InstroTek Inc., Raleigh, NC) for volumetric water content.We will conduct a thorough evaluation of how integrated sorghum and cotton cropping systems impact regionally important soil health parameters. Nutrient cycling is one of the primary ecosystem services concerning agricultural producers so we will evaluate the soil health parameters affecting nutrient cycling, as well as soil physical characteristics which reduce wind erodibility.Soil gas fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2), N2O, nitric oxide (NO), ammonia (NH3), and methane (CH4) will be measured at locations bi-weekly prior to and after terminating cover crops and then monthly throughout the target crop growing season and until planting cover crops. Gas measurements will also be collected 1, 3, 7 and 14 d following pre-plant applied and side-dressed nitrogen fertilizer applications which is when the largest N2O flux has been measured in our preliminary trials. A Gasmet GT5000 Terra Fourier Transform InfraRed-Multicomponent Gas Analyzer (FTIR; Gasmet Technologies Inc., La Prairie, QC, Canada) integrated with a Li-Cor 8100-103 20-cm survey chamber will be utilized to measure trace gas fluxes at the soil:atmosphere interface.As a result of declining water resources, there is a need to better manage climate-related risk associated with dryland production and to define management options that might improve yield, improve farm profitability, increase carbon sequestration, reduce GHG emissions, decrease climate change vulnerability, diversify producer income streams, and conserve water. We will work to identify consequences and potential obstacles to the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices and their consistency with existing regional cropping. Economic budgets will be formed and used to assess the short-term profitability of each regenerative system using data obtained from research locations in the THP and TRP. A risk simulation will be performed using the economic budgets, yield outcomes, weather data, and price conditions to assess the long-term probability that these regenerative systems will provide a positive net return.