Submission Date

7-24-2026

Document Type

Paper- Restricted to Campus Access

Department

Biology

Faculty Mentor

Denise Finney

Student Contributor

Katherine Studzinski

Comments

Presented during the 28th Annual Summer Fellows Symposium, July 24, 2026 at Ursinus College.

Project Description

Climate change, soil degradation, and increasing populations are some of the pressures that have been accelerating the need for more sustainable agricultural practices and attention to soil health. Cover crops, crops grown annually between cash crop seasons to improve soil health, have been demonstrated to provide benefits such as reduced soil degradation, enhanced soil microbial communities, and improved nutrient cycling. Soil respiration is a soil health indicator that corresponds to the microbial community’s ability to decompose available organic matter, quantified by respiration of carbon dioxide (CO2). Based on previous research about cover crop benefits and known information about soil profiles, I hypothesized that soils from fields with a longer cover crop history and from shallower depths will have a higher respiration response. A total of 33 corn fields practicing reduced-till and no-till systems were sampled in June 2025. Samples were air-dried and sieved to < 2mm before being rewetted and incubated in mason jar mesocosms. Soil respiration was quantified by sampling and reading headspace gas on an infrared gas analyzer (IRGA). Sample depth had a significant effect on soil respiration, but years of cover cropping did not.  While more observations are certainly needed, the uncontrollable variables that come with sampling working agricultural fields instead of controlled experimental fields may obscure cover crop impacts on soil respiration. More cover crop research in working agricultural fields instead of controlled experimental fields should be prioritized in order to determine farming contexts in which cover crops do or do not impact soil respiration and other soil health indicators.

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