Is What's Good for the Goose Really Good for the Gander? Soil Health and Carbon Benefits from Compost Application to Rangelands: Different for Different Soil Types
On June 21st, 4-5:30 pm, Cal Poly and Swanton Pacific Ranch hosted a webinar featuring emerging information from our research about the effects of varying levels of compost addition to two different soil types in degraded rangelands.
Learning Objectives
For Mr. Lee's section, we hoped that participants gained an understanding of the potential soil health impacts and carbon sequestration rates of various compost application rates on different soil types. And, we had hoped that ranchers would also have increased their understanding about increases in rangeland productivity resulting from compost application to degraded rangelands.
For Dr. Wilson's section, we wanted participants to improve their understanding about how to assess potential tradeoffs and benefits of compost to rangelands with respect to potential eutrophying macronutrients (soil P) and micronutrient metals. We also aimed to improve participant understanding of how to assess how differences in soil type may influence tradeoffs between benefits from added soil nutrients, and impacts to waterbodies from potentially eutrophying macronutrients.
Background
Compost addition to rangelands is an emerging practice that seeks to improve rangeland productivity while sequestering carbon with beneficial reuse of compost wastes.
In 2020, we applied 3 different levels of compost- 10, 20, and 30 tons per acre- on two different soils, both in proximity and both that had been intensively cultivated for many years.
This webinar featured information about the efficacy of this practice and its impacts. We hoped to inform ranchers and land managers who had been wondering about how to best manage other degraded rangelands and who might have considered this practice, which had been greatly subsidized by the State.
For more information:
Click here for the agenda. Click here for abstracts of the talks. Click here for biographies of the presenters. Click here for Aaron Lee's presentation.
