Assessing Soil Health Indicators in Various Ecosystems

Assessing Soil Health Indicators in Various Ecosystems Cora M. Pendley and Shiba H. Dhakal Mentor: Dr. I.P. Handayani, PhD Hutson College of Agriculture, Murray State University, KY 42071 Abstract When climate change is a concern, soil health is often overlooked as an accessible place for improvement. The objective of this study was to assess how different land uses change the health of the soil around us and provide information to those who want to make changes to their land management practices. Soil samples were collected from six local sites, with four replications at each ecosystem (agricultural hemp, construction site, urban sidewalk, artificial prairie, controlled-burn grassland, and a deciduous forest). The soil health indicators studied were soil organic carbon, macroporosity, total porosity, and bulk density. The forest provided the greatest soil organic carbon (5.7%), while the lowest was found in the hemp field (2.5%). The results show that soils from the prairie and forest sites had a higher quantity of macropores (70% and 62%, respectively) compared to the other sites, at an average of 42%. The average of total porosities were as follows: prairie (71%), forest (70%), controlled burn (62%), construction site (59%), urban sidewalk (57%), and the hemp field (56%). The bulk density results indicate that the most compacted sites were the urban sidewalk and the agricultural hemp field (both with an average of 1.2 g/cm^3), and the sites with the least compaction were the prairie and the forest at 0.8 g/cm^3. The findings of this research indicate the importance of these indicators in estimating healthy vs. unhealthy soils. Agriculture, Controlled Burn, Density, Soil Fertility, Soil Porosity, Urban