Perspectives on Sustainability

Energy flow drives everything in an ecosystem. As with nitrogen, following the energy through an ecosystem reveals to us how that ecosystem works. Here, I want to compare how the energy flows through cropping systems to how it flows through unmanaged natural systems. This comparison will show us why cropping systems rarely match the abundance of organisms or the nutrient cycling observed in their natural counterparts, and why this tradeoff is inherent to the production of food. Let’s take a look.

We recently released StockSmart, a free, online decision support tool that we developed in partnership with the University of Arizona and the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, that accesses remotely sensed forage production data and allows the user to easily define what is accessible to their livestock based on their fences, watering locations, the type of terrain their livestock will traverse and other parameters.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is filtering your spam, gatekeeping your newsfeed, chatting with you online, and underpinning many of your regular activities. Many vaunt the potential of AI in agriculture to help land-managers adapt to uncertain and extreme weather, increase production through automation, mitigate greenhouse gas production through optimized precision farming and more. Realizing any of this potential depends on addressing potentially negative unseen effects and barriers to adoption, like a lack of transparency in AI systems and science and issues of data integrity.

Predicting climate impacts on water availability for agriculture and potential effects on salmon populations requires us to understand natural seasonal changes in streamflow patterns across the Pacific Northwest. The Washington Department of Ecology in collaboration with WSU and UW recently published updated scientific information highlighting upcoming climate challenges to streams and salmon.

There are many soil health benefits of applying high rates of organic amendments. For example, a recent meta-analysis found adding organic amendments increased soil organic matter across multiple studies by an average of 29% in croplands and 34% in grasslands (Figure 1 below, Beillouin et al., 2023). This is the power of winning a pyramid scheme. What the studies don’t consider, however, is what happens to the losers of a pyramid scheme. What do I mean by all this? With organic amendments, all of it had to grow somewhere.

Compost is used as a nutrient source as well as soil conditioner with a number of noted benefits in agricultural production systems. Compost application improves soil structure, soil moisture retention and builds up soil organic matter (Doran, 1996). Compost application has also been shown to activate soil microbial communities that help in nutrient cycling. Past studies have reported that compost helps improve soil water infiltration and binds the soil particles, helping reduce erodibility (Nigusse et al., 2015).

Waste is not glamorous. Just look at the moldy pumpkin leftovers from Halloween and Thanksgiving (yes, there are still quite a few around my neighborhood!) and you know why so many of us prefer to not spend our time thinking about wastes. From an energy standpoint, however, waste contains a largely untapped reserve of resources that can be recycled into the products we utilize daily as consumers. When we recover these materials, we have fewer materials to deal with as waste – and also reduce our consumption of raw materials. So why is waste recovery not a typical component of our infrastructure?

CSANR is an entity not easily explained in one fell swoop, but the range and breadth of projects we’ve undertaken throughout 2023 really showcase our primary goal: to find inspired solutions for the future of agriculture and the environment. Take a minute to reflect with us on 2023 and look forward to the developing projects and partnerships of 2024.

Does synthetic nitrogen fertilizer burn up soil organic matter? Whether you are focused on soil health, soil sequestration, or soil carbon credits, this is an important question. The persistent claim is that synthetic N fertilizer can “burn” soil carbon by supercharging the soil microbes. This claim mainly arises from a 2007 research article from researchers at the University of Illinois (Khan et al., 2007; open access here) and has recently resurfaced in another article (Jesmin et al., 2021) and the resulting (flawed) media coverage. However, a single study is far from conclusive – so what does the broader scientific literature say? And what have we learned in the last few decades on the relationship between synthetic N and soil organic matter?

Soil to Society is not just a grant, but a strategy of thinking that addresses gaps in current knowledge and between research disciplines. The pipeline strategy traces the flow of nutrients from agricultural systems and food production to human consumption, culminating in the synthesis of more sustainable agricultural management strategies and healthy, affordable food products to meet the needs of diverse individuals and communities. It is a novel way of thinking, especially within traditionally separate research areas in academia. For this reason, one of the main objectives of this Soil to Society grant is to move forward this strategy of thought by introducing students, teachers, and farmers to the pipeline strategy in an educational setting.