Effects of Willow cultivation on soil health in contaminated and conventional agricultural sites (Slovakia)

A minimum suite of soil health indicators for North American agriculture

Soil health is defined as the capacity of soil to function as a vital living system within ecosystem and land-use boundaries to sustain biological productivity, maintain environmental quality, and promote plant, animal, and human health. The decline of soil health due to human impacts is an urgent ecological issue.This study explores the diversity patterns and within-field variability of soil macrofauna communities across different land management systems in Portugal, employing a robust, multi-faceted approach. Two case studies were conducted to evaluate diversity patterns in forests (oak- and pine-dominated) and olive groves (intensive and extensive systems). Sampling was carried out in April and May 2024, utilizing a systematic grid design that incorporated two spatial methodologies: a k-means-based grid and random point allocation, resulting in 36–39 sampling points per system. To enhance comparability, an additional sampling point was included following the LUCAS methodology.Macrofauna were identified morphologically at the order level, and abundance data were systematically recorded. For each land-use type, a subset of samples was analysed to quantify the biomass of individual taxonomic orders, providing deeper insights into the relevance of biomass as an ecological parameter. Species richness was assessed using incidence frequency data and compared across the various management systems, with a focus on Hill numbers. Diversity estimates for the agricultural sites indicate that extensive agricultural systems support higher potential species diversity as sampling efforts increase, while intensive agricultural systems generally sustain a lower and less diverse macrofauna community. Similarly, forested site estimates reveal that oak-dominated habitats harbour significantly greater species diversity compared to pine-dominated habitats. The metabarcoding approach corroborated these patterns, providing complementary insights, and the correlation between high-throughput sequencing (HTS) reads and biomass is critically analysed.This methodological framework underscores the profound impact of land-use practices on soil macrofauna diversity, highlighting their essential role in sustaining soil health and broader ecosystem functionality. By integrating soil macrofauna diversity into soil health assessments, this study addresses a significant knowledge gap and offers practical guidance for developing improved soil management strategies that support sustainable land-use practices.

The North American Project to Evaluate Soil Health Measurements was initiated with the objective to identify widely applicable soil health measurements for evaluation of agricultural management practices intended to improve soil health. More than 20 indicators were chosen for assessment across 120 long‐term agricultural research sites spanning from north‐central Canada to southern Mexico. The indicators being evaluated include common standard measures of soil, but also newer techniques of visible and near‐infrared reflectance spectroscopy, a smart phone app, and metagenomics. The aim of using consistent sampling and analytical protocols across selected sites was to provide a database of soil health indicator results that can be used to better understand how land use and management has affected the condition of soil ecosystem provisioning for agricultural biomass production and water resources, as well as nutrient and C cycling. The objective of this paper is to provide documentation of the overall design, and methods being employed to identify soil health indicators sensitive across agricultural management practices, pedologies, and geographies.

A field assessment to validate the assumptions of the Tea Bag Index (TBI) as a measure of soil health

Microrespiration: A field method for measuring microbial activity in arable soilsFranziska Weinrich1, Katharina Keiblinger1, Christoph Rosinger1,2 Gernot Bodner21Institute of Soil Research, Department of Forest- and Soil Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria (franziska.weinrich@students.boku.ac.at)2Institute of Agronomy, Department of Crop Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, AustriaThe debate on soil health is more topical than ever. Large-scale soil monitoring is therefore an important tool for assessing the state of soil health. In this context, relatively simple yet reliable methods are needed to accompany lab-based analytics of different soil health indicators, such as microbial activity. Microbial activity is a useful parameter because most soil processes are mediated by soil microorganisms. The aim of this study is to develop a simple and affordable field test for broad applicability of measuring microbial activity in arable soils. The method was tested for sensitivity to different arable management systems and effects of land use as well as the influence of soil texture.The principle of the field method is based on the colour change of a pH-indicator due to the acidic reaction with CO2 that is released during soil respiration. For this purpose, 13 agricultural sites with varying soil texture, three management systems as well as two types of land use (arable and natural vegetation) were examined. Pioneer management is characterized by management aiming for an increase of soil health by applying conservational or regenerative practices, Standard management involves state of common knowledge practices and the Reference, representing a different land use, is provided by a semi-natural vegetation strip.The method was developed for different amounts of soil, moisture conditions, incubation periods and substrates (glucose powder, milled straw, milled alfalfa). For the validation of the field method, the colour change of the indicator (evaluated by means of RGB data) is compared to respiration measurements with gas chromatography in the laboratory. Additionally, microbial biomass carbon and ergosterol concentrations as well as their ratio were determined to evaluate changes in the abundance of the microbial community and bacteria vs. fungi composition.The results show that the continuous colour change of the indicator is highly correlated with the CO2 concentrations measured in the laboratory (r2 = 0.62; p < 0.001). Furthermore, the metabolic quotient and the colour change correlate well with each other (r2 = 0.72; p < 0.001). The differentiation between agricultural management systems (Pioneer vs. Standard) is not so clear, land use however can clearly be distinguished with this method.  The influence of soil texture on the results of the field test is clearly visible. However, it is not possible to derive an indication on the microbial community composition with this method.The performance of the field method leads to reasonable results and proves to be suitable for the simple determination of microbial activity in arable soils. After further improvement, this method provides a rather simple and affordable tool for soil health monitoring of arable soils.

Maximizing soil organic carbon stocks under cover cropping: insights from long-term agricultural experiments in North America

Social outcomes of agricultural practice adoption are often excluded from adoption studies, particularly outcomes related to community well‐being. In large part, this is because assessing the social well‐being outcomes of sustainable agricultural practices lacks a widely accepted framework. This study fills the gap by identifying community well‐being domains and attributes related to the impacts of agricultural management. Semi‐structured interviews via Zoom with 42 underrepresented producers across the United States during the winter of 2021 captured producers' perceived broader community well‐being outcomes of soil health management. Producers were selected to represent Long‐Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network sites and interests, a national network of diverse cropping, livestock, and integrated agricultural research sites. Two rounds of coding, first inductive and then deductive, were based on the community well‐being framework and the 4Cs of ecosystem assessment: conditions, capabilities, connections, and crosscutting. The data revealed three major domains of how soil health management contributes to the conditions, capabilities, and connections that underlie community well‐being, aligning with the 4Cs framework. Within these three domains, we identify 16 attributes specific to agricultural management, including sense of place, recreation and tourism, and community safety, among others. These domains and associated attributes notably expand the range of measurable outcomes of soil health practice adoption. The new data contribute to the development of social sustainability indicators and efforts to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion within agricultural innovation. Additionally, this research provides an empirical, theoretically based framework of social sustainability indicators for agricultural sustainability assessments across the LTAR network.

Urban soil health: A city-wide survey of chemical and biological properties of urban agriculture soils

The objective of this study was to identify the effect of different land uses in peri-urban agriculture on the soil properties. Soil health indicators were evaluated in the top 10 cm at five tilled agricultural sites involving different cropping systems and use of agrochemicals within the peri-urban agricultural areas of Yaounde, Cameroon, and compared with a native forest land. The experimental data showed that the selected indicators were sensitive to cropping practice. Most cropped land had significantly higher total C, available N and P concentrations, soil pH, electrical conductivity, salinity, biomass C and P, dehydrogenase, beta-glucosidase, and acid phosphatase activities. Land producing corn (Zea mays L.) and sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) differed from that producing tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.), but cultivation of these crops has significantly impacted native soil quality. However, phenol oxidase, microbal biomass C/organic C (C(mic)/C(org)), and microbial biomass C/microbial biomass P (C(mic)/P(mic)) were negatively affected. These appeared to be more consistent indicators of negative management causing changes to soil health and may be suitable for an early appraisal of soil health.

ABSTRACTBackgroundBoth organic carbon (OC) stocks and labile OC (LOC) fractions are important indicators of soil health and are sensitive to land use change.AimsTo study the effects of land use change on these indicators in montane volcanic ash soils, a soil transect was surveyed in northern Ecuador.MethodsSamples were collected from 0–30, 30–60, and 60–90 cm soil depth at two agricultural sites with different time of cultivation and at three natural vegetation sites (tropical alpine grassland, páramo). LOC was determined as cold and hot water extractable OC (CWEOC and HWEOC). Molar absorptivity at 254 nm was determined in the extracts as a qualitative measure.ResultsTotal OC stocks were high at the páramo sites (51.3–60.2 kg C m−3) and the younger agricultural site (50.8 kg C m−3; 20 years of cultivation), but significantly lower (30.1 kg C m−3) at the older agricultural site (at least 100 years of cultivation); CWEOC (0.1%–0.7%) and HWEOC (0.6%–4.1%) represented only a small part of the OC. Both LOC pools decreased with increasing cultivation time, with CWEOC reflecting short‐term and HWEOC long‐term effects. In contrast, the molar absorptivity was highest at the oldest site (198–307 L mol−1 cm−1 vs. 36–64 L mol−1 cm−1 at the other sites), indicating that easily degradable labile C was depleted leaving compounds with higher aromaticity.ConclusionsThe conversion of páramo into agricultural land negatively affects OC stocks and soil health, as indicated by reduced OC storage capacities and lower LOC contents.

A changing climate offers new opportunities to expand agriculture in northern latitudes, and understanding forest‐to‐agriculture land conversion impacts is critical to ensure soil sustainability. Using the Comprehensive Assessment of Soil Health (CASH) framework, we identified a minimum suite of indicators with little collinearity to reliably predict soil impacts during the conversion of boreal forest to agriculture and a time since conversion gradient (forest, <10 years, >10 and <50 years, and >50 years since conversion). We sampled paired forest and agricultural sites and used multiple linear regression to assess 16 indicators and found four‐ and six‐indicator models predicted the CASH score with varying but reasonable accuracy depending on conversion class. Organic matter, water aggregate stability, and pH were consistent predictors across all classes, as well as one or more micronutrients. The CASH framework appears to be more suitable for agricultural soils and as time since conversion proceeds.

Understanding spatial variability of soil properties is essential to support land management decisions. However, despite the growing worldwide emphasis on integrated landscape management, soil variations resulting from land use changes have rarely been documented. The study used the land health surveillance concept in combination with simple geostatistical approaches to describe key soil properties among land use types and characterize their spatial variability in the highlands of Cameroon. A total of 320 soil samples were collected in two sites with contrasting land uses (agricultural and pasture) and were analyzed for granulometric fraction, soil organic carbon (SOC), nitrogen (N), soil reaction (pH), phosphorous (P), calcium (Ca), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), aluminum (Al) and zinc (Zn). The spatial correlations between the soil properties revealed the factors responsible for the observed differences and showed that wide ranges were obtained in agricultural site as opposed to pasture. SOC and N decreased in the order of forest > grassland > fallow > croplands > pasture due to inherent soil properties, anthropogenic activities, land cover/land use and topographic factors. Kriged maps provided detailed visualization of soil properties at landscape scale, and helped to identify critical areas for targeted land management interventions to improve land quality. The spatial distribution of selected soil properties showed a well-defined pattern of higher concentrations in the lowlands and valleys and areas with permanent vegetation cover in both sites. These results are useful for improving the efficient use of inputs such fertilizers. Context-specific land management based on spatial variability of soil properties is highly recommended and more research is required to generalize our knowledge about spatial variability of soil health indicators and the casual factors in the highlands of Cameroon.

Quantitative analysis of soil quality around brick kilns using pollution indices and ANOVA in Jammu district of Jammu and Kashmir, India

Crop residue burning and urban sustainability threats are vastly interrelated themes that have predominant impacts on environmental quality, public health, social justice, and resource fulfillment. Over recent years, CR burning has become a common practice in developing countries. Due to the lack of a proper disposal mechanism for CR, the farmer burns them at agricultural farm sites and releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which poses a great threat to the environment. Burning crop residue is a severe ecological issue that impacts both rural and urban regions substantially. Crop residue burning is a ubiquitous agricultural practice in numerous parts of the world, especially in developing nations, used to clear fields rapidly and manage the crop residues. These practices will operate in the short term, which has substantial long-term impacts on atmospheric conditions, soil health, and global (CH4) dynamics. Furthermore, the present study evaluates and elaborates on the environmental consequences of crop residue burning and its threats to urbanization.

New sensor measures biological activity in soil at field scale in real time