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COLLEGE OF FOOD, AGRICULTURAL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

November 15, 2023

Welcome to the Carbon Capture: A Short Digest with Six Key Insights from the Lal Carbon Center, C-FARM, and the World of Carbon, Climate and Conservation.

1.

Wilkins named a top Ohio leader

The Ohio State University's Jackie Wilkins, and one of the original Co-PIs on the C-FARM project for the Lal Carbon Center, has been named one of Ohio's top 50 women leaders in 2023 by Women We Admire, an organization of the most accomplished women executives and leaders across the U.S. and Canada.

Plowing: Dust storms, Conservation Agriculture, and need for a “Soil Health Act”

The dust storm tragedy on I-55 in central Illinois on May 1, 2023, a reminder of the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, necessitates urgent policy intervention to replace plow tillage with Conservation Agriculture (CA) involving no-tillage with crop biomass mulch, cover cropping, and complex crop rotations. System-based CA has co-benefits including control of soil erosion by wind (dust storm) and water, low risks of nonpoint source pollution including algal bloom, adaptation and mitigation of climate...

Mongabay: [Commentary] Soil degradation in India spells doom for millions

Dr. Lal interviewed for Mongabay with Ramesh Menon. They discuss the imperative to care for the soil so that we may avoid food insecurity for millions.

What is carbon sequestration in soils?

The term carbon (C) sequestration has not just become a buzzword but is something of a siren's call to scientific communicators and media outlets. Carbon sequestration is the removal of C from the atmosphere and the storage, for example, in soil. It has the potential to partially compensate for anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and is, therefore, an important piece in the global climate change mitigation puzzle. However, the term C sequestration is often used misleadingly and, while...

Policy challenges to enhance soil carbon sinks: the dirty part of making contributions to the Paris agreement by the United States

ABSTRACT The U.S. government is planning significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as part of their nationally determined contribution to the Paris Agreement. The plan includes a variety of activities, one of which is enhancing carbon sinks in soils through a climate-smart agriculture program. The nature of soil carbon along with market forces, cultural factors and other issues create challenges for a program in climate-smart agriculture. These challenges include quantification of...

The interplay between microbial communities and soil properties

In recent years, there has been considerable progress in determining the soil properties that influence the structure of the soil microbiome. By contrast, the effects of microorganisms on their soil habitat have received less attention with most previous studies focusing on microbial contributions to soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics. However, soil microorganisms are not only involved in nutrient cycling and organic matter transformations but also alter the soil habitat through various...