Organic agriculture is gaining ground globally; such agricultural production system uses huge amounts of organic amendments (OA) some of which are lost as carbon dioxide CO2. It’s important for this industry to be able to quantify these losses for different organic amendment types and levels, and under different moisture regimes.

This was the subject of a recent multi-institution peer reviewed manuscript published at the Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part B by Ripendra Awal, Haimanote Bayabil, and Ali Fares, researchers from the CAHS who co-authored this work with colleagues from other universities. In this study, the authors evaluated the effect of irrigation levels (deficit, full, and excess), and organic amendments type (chicken manure

[CM] and bone meal [BM]) and OA application rates (No Amendment, Half the Recommended Rate (0.5RR), RR, and 2 times the RR) on (i) soil properties and (ii) soil carbon dioxide (CO2).

Their work revealed that OA type, rate, and their interaction had significant effects on soil CO2 fluxes. The team members, in collaboration with other CAHS’ scientists, are conducting a study that builds on this work using additional OA types under southeast Texas conditions. Results of the current study will be shared with Texas agricultural producers using different communication platforms.

Dr. Ali Fares

 

Ali Fares, Ph.D.
Interim Associate Director, Cooperative Agricultural Research Center
alfares@pvamu.edu
(936) 261-5019