Submission Date

7-24-2026

Document Type

Paper- Restricted to Campus Access

Department

Biology

Faculty Mentor

Denise Finney

Student Contributor

Gianna Smith

Comments

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

Project Description

Cover cropping is generally accepted as an effective method to improve soil health and restore nutrients, such as nitrogen, to the soil. Nitrogen is an imperative part of soil that plants rely on for optimal growth and development. The aim of this research was to supplement the lack of understanding surrounding the influence of the amount of time of cover cropping on the soil microbial community and the amount of mineral nitrogen added back to the soil. Through processing and completing a 28-day incubation of soils from farms that have practiced cover cropping for various amounts of time, the amount of potentially mineralizable nitrogen (PMN) was determined with the goal of understanding how much mineral nitrogen microbes can generate and whether it is impacted by years of cover cropping. Therefore, the PMN, which was measured in terms of mg/kg soil of ammonium and nitrate, provides an effective gauge of how healthy a soil is.  Soil from farms that have practiced cover cropping for longer periods of time, as long as 15 years, were not found to produce significantly more nitrogen during the 28-day incubation, however data trends support that soils that experienced shorter periods of cover cropping produced more nitrogen than those that experienced none. This trend suggests a pattern between years of cover cropping and nitrogen mineralization, but further research, sampling, and experimentation is required for more clear results.

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