The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences
COLLEGE OF FOOD, AGRICULTURAL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
CMASC Newsletter
January 4, 2023

C-MASc Newsletter Winter 2023

Celebrating the Launch of C-FARM

On November 2, 2022, over 70 guests gathered in the new Controlled Environment Agriculture Building on Waterman to help celebrate the launch of the Carbon Farming Alliance for Research and Management, C-FARM.  The program featured remarks from OSU President Kristina Johnson, Dean Cathann Kress, and C-MASC Director Dr. Rattan Lal. Guests heard from a panel of some of C-FARM’s sponsors, moderated by Allison Thomson, AgMission program director, FFAR. During the program, Dr. Lal and the...

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C-FARM Objectives & Acknowledgements

The primary goal of C-FARM is to quantify how on-farm adoption of specific conservation and innovative management practices affect the total stock and depth distribution of soil carbon under cropland, grassland, and rangeland uses across a diversity of major land resource areas in the U.S.

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All About AgMission

By Allison Thomson, FFAR AgMission Program Director Agricultural production contributes roughly 13 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but the sector also has the potential to be a powerful climate solution. At the same time, agriculture is increasingly under threat from extreme weather events and changing climate patterns, posing risks to global food security and farmer livelihoods.  To combat these emerging threats, the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR)...

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Climate-Smart Farming Starts and Ends with Good Data

By Kelly Gillespie, Ph.D. There are certain practices we know drive a more robust, sustainable environment and healthier soils. Conservation or strip tillage, crop rotation, the usage of cover crops – these practices are ones that we know enhance soil organic carbon (SOC) levels in the soil. But we also know there is a lot of variability in the SOC sequestration potential due to soil types, the environment and other agronomic management decisions. To drive on-farm impact for growers and...

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New Arrival Jason Phillips

Please join us in welcoming C-MASC’s new Assoicate Director, Jason Phillips. Prior to this role, Jason served five years as a Director of Foundation Relations, working with faculty across Ohio State to secure philanthropic grants to support research. Jason is a co-founder of the non-profit Student Success Stores which works to put free stores and food banks in underresourced schools across Columbus. Prior to joinning OSU, Jason worked in development and programing for Godman Guild, City...

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New Book, Organic Agriculture and Climate Change, from Dr. Klaus Lorenz and Rattan Lal, Now Available

Concerns have emerged regarding negative effects of the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and genetically modified organisms in agriculture. In response, the demand for agricultural products produced by organic agriculture (OA) is increasing.

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A Note from The Herbert W. Hoover Foundation

By Kaitlyn Cowley, Ohio Operations Associate, Herbert W. Hoover Foundation The Herbert W. Hoover Foundation is proud to be supporting C-MASC and the cutting-edge, world-changing science that comes from it.  As a foundation, we are continuously looking for initiatives that push knowledge forward, benefit communities, and lead to a healthier environment. All of this can be found at C-MASC.  Though we are headquartered in Stark County, our founder was instrumental in the creation of Biscayne...

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Quarterly Viewpoint

From the Desk of Professor Rattan Lal Last month, Egypt welcomed the world to the coastal city of Sharm El-Sheik for the 27th United Nations Climate Change conference, COP27, from November 6th to the 22nd of 2022. The first COP event was hosted in Berlin in 1995 and has been held annually ever since, apart from 2020’s cancellation due to COVID.

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Agroforestry

By Dr. Roger Williams, Chair, C-MASC Agroforestry Working Group The Forest Carbon Working Group has received financial support from CFAES Rattan Lal Center for Carbon Management and Sequestration to fund a graduate student to study the extent and the potential for Ohio’s forests to sequester carbon. This includes understanding the variations in forest cover/conditions and the variations employed in forest management, and how this influences the carbon flux in Ohio’s forests. Once this is...

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Agricultural Soils

By Dr. M. Scott Demyan, Chair, C-MASC Agricultural Soils Working Group The Agricultural Soils Group secured a CFAES equipment grant for the purchase of a Gasmet GT5000 Terra Portable FTIR Multiple Component Gas analyzer. The GT5000 quantifies CO2, CO, CH4, N2O, NH4, and H2O concentrations and when paired with a chamber, can be used to calculate fluxes of those gases. Along with the GT5000 gas analyzer we will also be acquiring two Eosense chambers, which are dynamic chambers that close for...

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Dr. Lal Joins the Adventures of AGRIman in New Comic

Be sure to grab your copy of AGRIman Adventures, Issue 3 featuring our very own Dr. Lal. This colorful and fun adventure is a perfect learning tool for soil enthusiasts of all ages. Agriman is published by WHYFARM in partnership with the Climate Change and Natural Resources Program of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA

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Rattan Lal, Special Envoy of IICA to COP27: "Farmers are the major Implementers of the concept of how to make agriculture a solution to climate change."

Humanity cannot do without agriculture since the activity is the main source of food, a basic right of all people that depends on the existence of healthy soils to produce, assured Rattan Lal, a scientist considered the greatest global authority in environmental sciences.

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Ambassador Sandhu Visits Ohio State, his Parent's Alma Mater

On December 19, 2022, India’s ambassador to the U.S., Taranji Singh Sandhu visited OSU to see where his parents attended university. Dr.

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Cleveland's Ian Frazier Gives a Shout Out to Soil in The New Yorker

In his comedic holiday poem, “Greetings, Friends!”, published in the December 26, 2022 issue of The New Yorker Magazine, humorist Ian Frazier took the opportunity to mention Dr. Lal’s soil research along side many of the names that captured headlines in 2022.  The poem features Brittney Griner, Vladimir Zelensky, Amartya Sen, and Guillermo del Toro, among many others who made an impact on the world this past year.  Ian Frazier was born in Cleveland, Ohio and attended Harvard...

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Annual Publications 2022

Books Written: 1. Lorenz, K. Lal, R. 2022. Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration in Terrestrial Biomes of the United States. Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-95192-4, 201pp. https://doi.org/0.1007/978-3-030-95193-1

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