Graduate Exit Seminar - Oliver Hoffman

Plan to join Oliver Hoffman's graduate exit seminar on March 31, 2025, at 3:00 pm in Kottman Hall, Room 333D or via Zoom. Oliver will present, "Proposing the Conservation Reserve Program as a Potential Soil Health Benchmark: A Case Study Quantifying the Soil Health Gap in Southern Minnesota"

Abstract: Soil health is an important concept related to sustainable agriculture and food security. However, the absence of a universally accepted benchmark complicates its application as a tool to measure soil functional capabilities. We utilized Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) soils as a potential benchmark and aimed to understand the soil health gap (SHG) in Faribault County, Minnesota. The Soil Management Assessment Framework (SMAF) was used to evaluate soil health indicator scores for soil physical, chemical, biological, and nutrient properties along with quantifying the SHG (i.e., benchmark soil minus test soil) between corn-based agricultural production (AP) and CRP systems. This case study featured three paired farms consisting of CRP tall grass prairie established in 2001 adjacent to long-term AP. Results showed greater SMAF overall scores in CRP compared to AP fields with a mean SHG of 0.09. Land use had a strong influence on SMAF overall scores and was primarily driven by biological indicators such as soil organic carbon, microbial biomass carbon, and β-glucosidase activity. Despite this finding, SMAF appeared to show limited applicability in ecological systems and potentially inhibited accurate representation of CRP sites due to its agricultural focus and lack of ecosystem-specific factors like pH.

Advisor: Dr. Jim Ippolito