Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Minutes of the Southern Region Research Project S1048 Assessment of the Carbon Sequestration Potential of Common Agricultural Systems on Benchmark Soils Across the Southern Region Climate Gradient and the Southern Region Soil Physics Group National Soil Dynamics Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Auburn, AL May 19-20, 2011 Host and President: Dr. Francisco Arriaga, USDA-ARS Project Administrator: Dr. Steve Workman, University of Kentucky Attendees: Francisco Arriaga, J.D. Booker (graduate student, Texas Tech Univ.), Kris Brye, Guangsheng Chen, Sam Dennis, Bob Hubbard, Richard McMullen (graduate student, Univ. of Arkansas), Cristine Morgan, Tyson Ochsner, David Radcliffe, Maifan Silitonga, Teferi Tsegaye, Ole Wendroth, Wes Wood, Steve Workman, Rick Zartman 1. Meeting called to order at 8:15 a.m., May 19. 2. Welcoming Remarks a. Francisco Arriaga, Host and President b. Allen Torbert, Research Leader at NSDL c. Joseph Touchton, Dep. Head, Agronomy and Soils, Auburn Univ. 3. Introduction of participants 4. Minutes from 2010 meeting modified to note David Nofziger as host in 2001. 5. Modified minutes approved (moved by Brye, second by Wendroth). 6. Discussed achievements of group members a. Cristine Morgan newly elected S1 chair-elect and recently earned tenure 7. Silitonga and Radcliffe invited us to Southern Region Water Quality Conference, Athens, GA, Sept. 19-20, 2011 8. Brye led discussion on the S1048 research project proposal a. Reviewer at national level wanted some deeper soil sampling i. Michael Cox at Mississippi State will do deeper sampling ii. Heitman and Brye will do deeper sampling iii. Ochsner, Zartman, and Arriaga will do deeper sampling iv. Strickland and Hubbard will do deeper sampling b. Discussed overall objectives of the project and its relation to other ongoing work c. Discussed sample analysis plan i. Morgan can do SIC and VIS-NIR ii. ARS lab in Ames can do LECO C/N for $5 iii. OSU can do LECO C/N for $10 d. Brye will proceed with the revised project plan to get approval e. Sampling plan i. 60 m transect, sampling at 15 m intervals ii. 0-10, 10-20 cm basic depth increments iii. Some investigators will do 20-40 cm and 40-60 cm increments 9. Elected Silitonga as Secretary for 2011-2012. Nominated by Brye, seconded by Zartman, unanimously approved. 10. Richard McMullen, grad student with Kris Brye, presented Preliminary broiler litter application rate effects on soil surface carbon dioxide flux from a Captina silt loam. 11. Bob Hubbard presented Effects of cover crops on soil physical properties and carbon/nitrogen relationships in coastal plains soils under conservation tillage. 12. Cristine Morgan presented Fingerprinting soils using VNIR spectroscopy for forensic applications. 13. Tyson Ochsner presented Performance of the cosmic-ray soil moisture observing system (COSMOS) at Marena, OK. 14. Morgan and Radcliffe led working lunch discussion of possible reorganization of the Soil Science Society of America. a. Concerns of the group i. In practice we are losing job opportunities to engineers ii. We need to interact with engineers more in meetings iii. We need NSF program staff to come to our meetings iv. We need more NSF review panel members from SSSA v. May be value to the ASA communities approach 15. David Radcliffe presented Nitrogen fate and transport in on-site wastewater systems. 16. Maifan Silitonga presented Subsurface transport of leaching of nutrients. 17. Teferi Tsegaye presented Assessment of drinking water quality for Madison County of Northern Alabama and Carbon, water vapor, and energy flux under a no-till farming using an eddy flux system. 18. Ole Wendroth presented Annual progress report from Kentucky: I. Irrigation treatment experiments and bromide leaching in variable soil landscapes. II. Scale dependence of NDVI-yield relationships. 19. JD Booker, grad student with Rick Zartman, presented Modeling pivot irrigated cotton at field-scale: Development of the PALMSCot model. 20. Voted for best presentation award 21. Next year approved $50 registration for PIs, $25 for students; meeting date will be no earlier than May 11 in Stillwater, OK a. Discussed possible tours with preferences ranked 1) MOISST, 2) ARS watersheds, and 3) Mesonet headquarters b. Once date is set president should notify administrator of the project to start NIMMS email notification to experiment stations c. May be possible to get support from Southern Region Water Quality project d. Send emails under S1048 not Southern Region soil physics 22. Meeting adjourned for the day at 4:25 p.m., May 19. 23. Meeting called to order at 8:05 a.m., May 20. 24. Discussed possibility of adding C modeling to the regional project. 25. Discussed need for questionnaire to give land owners to record land use history. 26. Discussed ideas for annual meeting improvement a. Co-sponsor sessions at AGU meetings b. Have a liason between SSSA and AGU as between S6 and SWCS c. More outside invited speakers and NSF program officers at SSSA d. Concern that if SSSA broke from ASA, then SSSA would die on the vine e. Some support for communities type organization 27. SSSA should make more effort to establish soils programs in NSF 28. Best presentation award to Ochsner 29. Dr. Kip Balkcom, National Soil Dynamics Lab, presented Long-term research experiments  The Old Rotation and the Cullars Rotation. 30. Dr. Stephen Enloe, Dep. of Agronomy and Soils, Auburn University presented The Poisoning of Toomers Oaks. 31. Dr. Beth Guertal and Mr. Eric Kleypas, Auburn University, led the group on a tour of the turf management systems and operations for Jordan-Hare Stadium and the baseball stadium 32. Meeting adjourned at 11:00 a.m., May 20. Minutes prepared by Tyson Ochsner, May 20, 2011.

Revisions to the regional project proposal, approved at the regional level in 2010, but not yet at the national level, were discussed at the regional project meeting in May 2011 and implemented in a revised version of the regional-approved project proposal. As of June 2, 2011, the revised version of the regional-approved project proposal has been updated in NIMSS and the national contact person has been notified.