Annual/Termination Reports:

[07/09/2014] [07/09/2016] [04/05/2018] [01/07/2019]

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Participants

Brief Summary of Minutes

See attached "Copy of Minutes" file below for NCERA3's 2013 annual report.

Accomplishments

Publications

Impact Statements

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Participants

Mickey Ransom, Kansas
Kevin McSweeney, Illinois
Mike Konen, Illinois
Brian Slater, Ohio
Maxine Levin, National Leader SS Interpretations, NRCS

Brief Summary of Minutes

A 2015 meeting of the NCERA-3 Committee was scheduled for Tuesday June 9, 2015, 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM, at the Holiday Inn Downtown in Duluth, MN, the conference venue for the NCSS National Conference).

 

The change form the regular Sunday meeting schedule was made so that NCERA-3 members and guests could attend the NCSS Field trip on the Sunday prior to the conference and attendance at the talk on climate hubs by Jerry Hatfield from 8:00-8:30 AM, as well as the Tuesday afternoon training sessions of the NCSS Conference.

 

Unfortunately, few NCERA-3 members attended the conference, insufficient to form a quorum of members. Hence no formal meeting was held in Duluth.

 

A teleconference for NCERA-3 was held on Thursday, February 25, 2016, at 1:00 PM EST. Participants in the teleconference were:

 

Mickey Ransom, Kansas

Kevin McSweeney, Illinois

Mike Konen, Illinois

Brian Slater, Ohio

Maxine Levin, National Leader SS Interpretations, NRCS

 

Topics discussed included:

 

2016 Meeting Plans:

 

It was decided that the 2016 meeting would be convened at the North Central Regional Soil Survey Planning Conference to be held July 12-15, 2016, hosted by Northern Illinois University. It was suggested that the NCERA-3 meeting could be held on the morning of Tuesday July 12, before the formal NCSS meeting sessions begin in the afternoon. 10:00 AM was suggested.

 

Membership:

 

It was noted that several active members have retired, and that several states do not have regular participants. Kevin McSweeney offered to encourage participation from Alfred Hartemink from Wisconsin. Mickey Ransom offered to contact possible Nebraska representatives. Ed Nater informed NCER-3 that Nic Jelinski would be the new representative form Minnesota.

 

Maxine Levin provided updates on relevant NRCS events and changes.

 

Curtis Monger is now National Leader, Soil Survey Standards, and will be a good liaison for NCERA-3.

Jon Hempel has retired. David Hoover now Acting Director.

 

Major SS initiatives and challenges:

NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network). Extensive soil sampling involved.

EPA: Wetland function analysis.

Soil survey disaggregation: training opportunities.

New raster data model for data delivery: development challenges.

 

Kevin McSweeney led a discussion on Field Training and Learning Opportunities for Students

 

• There are too few field opportuntiies for studnts and NCERA-3 could provide a service in this area.


• Students enjoy and learn greatly during both local and international field trips.


• A number of NCERA-3 participants lead field excursions in various places (e.g. Iceland, Costa Rica, Illinois etc.)


• Some good examples of cooperative opportunities: University of California


• Relationship with soil judging may provide future possibilities.


• SSSA committee attempted to develop a Midwestern course, but too few participants for support.


• It was suggested that a review of current opportunities could be shared with the NCER-3 group and perhaps a poster developed for meetings. Futher NCER-3 discussion is encouraged.

Accomplishments

Publications

Impact Statements

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Participants

Mickey Ransom, Kansas State Univ., Brian Slater, Ohio State Univ., Douglas Malo, South Dakota State Univ., Kevin McSweeney, Univ. of Illinois, Lee Burras, Iowa State Univ., David Lindbo, NRCS, Curtis Monger, NRCS, David Hoover, NRCS, Cathy Seybold, NRCS, Henry Ferguson, NRCS

Brief Summary of Minutes

Accomplishments

<p>1. Continued integration of experiment station and university laboratory pedon descriptions and soil property data into NRCS's national database.</p><br /> <p>2. Updating and improving yield predictions and/or soil productivity indices for major crops in a number of states. These data are critical to management decisions and taxation decisions in some states.</p><br /> <p>3. Measuring soil dynamic properties and gaining understanding of soil change under a variety of management systems.</p><br /> <p>4. Development of new technologies for soil mapping (Digital Soil Mapping), soil morphology (Digital Soil Morphometrics), and classification.</p><br /> <p>5. Extending soil survey to urban and other highly managed or disturbed environments.</p><br /> <p>6. Evaluating of amendments such as biochar and gypsum as well as waste products and documenting how they affect pedology and land management.</p><br /> <p>7. Contributions to the assessment of soil quality and soil health.</p><br /> <p>8. Development of new techniques to measure soil change across multiple scales from new remote sensing technologies for measuring tillage intensity to micromorphological analyses for measuring erosion impacts.</p>

Publications

Impact Statements

1. NCERA-3 members continue to work with a broad range of other disciplines to enhance access to high quality information about the soil resource, and to help the public understand the value of the soil resource and to avail the valuable tools for aiding responsible decisions about natural resource management.

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Report Information

Participants

Darrell Schulze, Purdue Univ., Brian Slater, Ohio State Univ., Nic Jelinski, Univ. Minnesota, Kevin McSweeney, Univ. Illinois. Judith Turk, Univ. Nebraska and Mickey Ransom, Univ. Kansas were connected on-line to the meeting via Googledocs.

Brief Summary of Minutes

Accomplishments

<p>See file attached with summary of minutes.</p>

Publications

Impact Statements

1. 6. NCERA-3 members continue to work with a broad range of other disciplines to enhance access to high quality information about the soil resource, and to help the public understand the value of the soil resource and to avail the valuable tools for aiding responsible decisions about natural resource management. Notably, colleagues engaged in regional crop, forest, rangeland and climate modeling are consistent users of soil survey information and engage in discussion with our members about access, use and interpretation of soil survey information.

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