Tag: soil

FAU Lands $1.3M NSF Grant to Boost Dryland Soil Quality Amid Climate Stressors

sarah JonasAnnouncement

Drylands, found across every continent, cover about 45% of the Earth’s land surface and support 38% of the human population. The NSF grant will enable scientists to enhance understanding of climate resistance of individual microbes and to improve microbial remediations to reduce soil degradation under climate change.

Different Microorganisms Have a Taste for Different Flavors of Ammonia

sarah JonasResearch Results

Ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms (AOMs) use ammonia as an energy source while converting it to nitrite and play a pivotal role in the global nitrogen cycle. This study explored whether different AOM species preferred to use urea over ammonia. It found that some AOMs preferred urea while others used ammonia and urea simultaneously.

Between Soil and Society: New book traces history and development of U.S. conservation policy

sarah JonasAnnouncement

A new book by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign expert in law and policy explores the history and development of the U.S. conservation policy, offering insight into how Congress works, how policy is put together, and the challenge of balancing narrow and public interests in addressing pressing agricultural and environmental topics.

Wilkes Center at University of Utah announces 7 finalists for the $500,000 Climate Solutions Launch Prize

sarah JonasFeature

The Wilkes Climate Launch Prize is one of the largest university-affiliate climate awards in the world and is geared to spur innovation and breakthroughs. The prize is specifically calibrated to support unconventional or first-of-a-kind projects that often have difficulty getting funding.

Roots of Bloody Mary

sarah JonasResearch Results

Regardless of how one says ‘tomato,’ they all contain tomatine, a toxin in the plant’s green fruit, leaves, and roots. Tomatoes produce the bitter-tasting compound — a major plant-specialized metabolite secreted from the roots — to defend against pathogens and foragers.

New study shows saltwater intrusion is wreaking havoc on farms throughout Delmarva

sarah JonasResearch Results

A new paper from researchers at UD, the University of Maryland and George Washington University published in Nature Sustainability shows the spread and cost of saltwater intrusion from 2011-2017 in farms located in those mid-Atlantic states. The paper highlights how between the years 2011-2017, the area covered by visible salt patches almost doubled, with over 19,000 acres converted to marsh. Potential economic losses from the salt patches during that time period totaled over $427,000.

Soil microbes help plants cope with drought, but not how scientists thought

sarah JonasResearch Results

In a multi-generation experiment, researchers from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) found microbes helped plants cope with drought, but not in response to plants’ cries for help. Instead, the environment itself selected for drought-tolerant microbes. And while those hardy microbes were doing their thing, they just happened to make plants more drought-tolerant, too.

UC Irvine receives grant to study lead exposure effects on children’s learning, behavior

sarah JonasAnnouncement

The Program in Public Health at the University of California, Irvine has received a five-year, $2.7 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to research the connection between low-level lead exposure during pregnancy and early childhood and children’s school performance and behavior in Santa Ana, California.

How much nitrogen does corn get from fertilizer? Less than farmers think

sarah JonasResearch Results

Corn growers seeking to increase the amount of nitrogen taken up by their crop can adjust many aspects of fertilizer application, but recent studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign show those tweaks don’t do much to improve uptake efficiency from fertilizer. That’s because, the studies show, corn takes up the majority of its nitrogen – about 67% on average – from sources occurring naturally in soil, not from fertilizer.