Sentinel Sites for Soil Change seeks landowner participation in a project to resample historic soil survey points in the Maumee River Basin (MRB) of northwest Ohio. The project aims to strengthen understanding of how soil properties (e.g., soil organic carbon (SOC), soil fertility, and soil health) change over decadal timescales and improve the ability to predict changes under different soil management conditions.
What is the Sentinel Sites for Soil Change project?
Sentinel Sites for Soil Change is a USDA NRCS-funded project* that aims to resample historic soil survey points in the Maumee River Basin (MRB) of northwest Ohio to strengthen our understanding of how soil properties (e.g., soil organic carbon (SOC), soil fertility, and soil health) change over decadal timescales and to improve our ability to predict changes under different soil management conditions.
*Official Project Name: NR243A750023C023: Sentinel sites to quantify decadal change; Resampling historic pedons for monitoring and modeling dynamic soil properties
Background
SOC, plant nutrients (e.g., nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium), and overall soil health are critical for sustainable crop production. But these properties are susceptible to change due to tillage, cropping, and fertility practices. Additionally, the direction of that change and how it is influenced by other soil factors is uncertain. Measuring change-over-time of soil properties across large spatial areas and diverse soils can help clarify these uncertainties. With a legacy of robust soil survey work, the MRB is a prime location for measuring change-over-time of soil properties and improving our knowledge of SOC, plant nutrient, and soil health dynamics.
From the early 1950s through the 1980s, soil survey staff from the National Cooperative Soil Survey sampled and described more than 200 soils throughout the 21,538 km2 MRB (Fig. 1). This included sampling campaigns within Allen, Auglaize, Defiance, Fulton, Hancock, Henry, Mercer, Paulding, Putnam, Van Wert, Williams, and Wood counties. Sixty-three distinct soil series were sampled during the endeavor, the majority of which were sampled under agricultural land use. These soils were sampled again from 1996-1998 as part of the Lake Erie Agricultural Systems for Environmental Quality (LEASEQ) project (Shields et al., 2001). By resampling these soils a third time, we hope to measure how soil organic carbon, soil fertility, and soil health changes over approximately 70 years and how they are influenced by management decisions and other soil properties, e.g., soil texture.
How can you help?
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The majority of more than 200 sampling sites in the MRB are located on private land. Additionally, ownership records for many of these sites are limited. Therefore, the success of this project is partially contingent on private landowners self-identifying and granting us access to sampling sites. Please visit our survey to see if you own land containing a sampling point and specify whether you wish to participate.
Visit our survey -
Once sampling is complete, we need your help to understand how management influences soil property change. We will send you a survey about tillage, crop, and nutrient management practices at your site. This information is extremely important, and we will provide a modest stipend for your time and effort to complete the survey.
Note: All location information, soil data, and management data will remain complete anonymous and be used for research and education purposes only.
Why help?
Your participation in this project will allow us to further our understanding of soil organic carbon dynamics, soil fertility, and soil health. Simply by granting access to your property, you will contribute to research that will help to improve environmental quality, increase agricultural sustainability, and create healthy soils. This simple act on your part matters; a healthy environment, sustainable crop production, and healthy soils translates to healthy people.
What does participation mean?
By granting us access to your property, you are agreeing to a small group of soil scientists coming to your property for approximately one hour. We will hand dig three small holes (area = 10 x10 in.; depth = 12 in.) around the sampling point. Samples will be collected from each hole at three depths. In one of the holes we will make soil morphological observations, including soil structure, presence of roots, soil pores, and depth of A horizon. Sampling holes will be filled in and the surface smoothed.
We are committed to keeping ownership, location, and soil data private. However, this website will be updated with soil data summarized at the regional scale to provide rapid feedback for participating landowners. Additionally, we will develop individualized soil reports for landowners.
Meet the Sentinel Sites for Soil Change Team
Questions?
Thomas Doohan
doohan.4@osu.edu
330-749-4761
M. Scott Demyan
demyan.4@osu.edu
614-688-3349