IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i9p4844-d543489.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Interrelationships of Chemical, Physical and Biological Soil Health Indicators in Beef-Pastures of Southern Piedmont, Georgia

Author

Listed:
  • Subash Dahal

    (Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, University of Georgia, Miller Plant Sciences Building, 3111 Carlton St, Athens, GA 30602, USA)

  • Dorcas H. Franklin

    (Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, University of Georgia, Miller Plant Sciences Building, 3111 Carlton St, Athens, GA 30602, USA)

  • Anish Subedi

    (Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, University of Georgia, Miller Plant Sciences Building, 3111 Carlton St, Athens, GA 30602, USA)

  • Miguel L. Cabrera

    (Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, University of Georgia, Miller Plant Sciences Building, 3111 Carlton St, Athens, GA 30602, USA)

  • Laura Ney

    (Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, University of Georgia, Miller Plant Sciences Building, 3111 Carlton St, Athens, GA 30602, USA)

  • Brendan Fatzinger

    (Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, University of Georgia, Miller Plant Sciences Building, 3111 Carlton St, Athens, GA 30602, USA)

  • Kishan Mahmud

    (Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, University of Georgia, Miller Plant Sciences Building, 3111 Carlton St, Athens, GA 30602, USA)

Abstract

The study of interrelationships among soil health indicators is important for (i) achieving better understanding of nutrient cycling, (ii) making soil health assessment cost-effective by eliminating redundant indicators, and (iii) improving nitrogen (N) fertilizer recommendation models. The objectives of this study were to (i) decipher complex interrelationships of selected chemical, physical, and biological soil health indicators in pastures with history of inorganic or broiler litter fertilization, and (ii) establish associations among inorganic N, potentially mineralizable N (PMN), and soil microbial biomass (SMBC), and other soil health indicators. In situ soil respiration was measured and soil samples were collected from six beef farms in 2017 and 2018 to measure selected soil health indicators. We were able to establish associations between easy-to-measure active carbon (POXC) vs. PMN (R 2 = 0.52), and N (R 2 = 0.43). POXC had a noteworthy quadratic relationship with N and nitrate, where we found dramatic increase of N and nitrate beyond an inflection point of 500 mg kg −1 POXC. This point may serve as threshold for soil health assessment. The relationships of loss-on-ignition (LOI) carbon with other soil health indicators were discernable between inorganic- and broiler litter-fertilized pastures. We were able to establish association of SMBC with other soil variables (R 2 = 0.76) and there was detectable difference in SMBC between inorganic-fertilized and broiler litter-fertilized pastures. These results could be useful for cost-effective soil health assessment and optimization of N fertilizer recommendation models to improve N use efficiency and grazing system sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Subash Dahal & Dorcas H. Franklin & Anish Subedi & Miguel L. Cabrera & Laura Ney & Brendan Fatzinger & Kishan Mahmud, 2021. "Interrelationships of Chemical, Physical and Biological Soil Health Indicators in Beef-Pastures of Southern Piedmont, Georgia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-15, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:9:p:4844-:d:543489
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/4844/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/4844/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johannes Lehmann & Markus Kleber, 2015. "The contentious nature of soil organic matter," Nature, Nature, vol. 528(7580), pages 60-68, December.
    2. Hamparsum Bozdogan, 1987. "Model selection and Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC): The general theory and its analytical extensions," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 345-370, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:plo:pone00:0178915 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Salih Demirkaya & Abdurrahman Ay & Coşkun Gülser & Rıdvan Kızılkaya, 2025. "Enhancing Clay Soil Productivity with Fresh and Aged Biochar: A Two-Year Field Study on Soil Quality and Wheat Yield," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-18, January.
    3. Daniela Andreini & Diego Rinallo & Giuseppe Pedeliento & Mara Bergamaschi, 2017. "Brands and Religion in the Secularized Marketplace and Workplace: Insights from the Case of an Italian Hospital Renamed After a Roman Catholic Pope," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 529-550, March.
    4. S. A. Abu Bakar & Saralees Nadarajah & Z. A. Absl Kamarul Adzhar, 2018. "Loss modeling using Burr mixtures," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 1503-1516, June.
    5. Jaewoong Yun, 2023. "Strategies for Improving the Sustainability of Fare-Free Policy for the Elderly through Preferences by Travel Modes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-14, October.
    6. Malerba, Martino E. & Connolly, Sean R. & Heimann, Kirsten, 2015. "An experimentally validated nitrate–ammonium–phytoplankton model including effects of starvation length and ammonium inhibition on nitrate uptake," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 317(C), pages 30-40.
    7. Friederike Paetz, 2016. "Persönlichkeitsmerkmale als Segmentierungsvariablen: Eine empirische Studie [Personality traits for market segmentation: An empirical study]," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 68(3), pages 279-306, August.
    8. Berazneva, Julia & McBride, Linden & Sheahan, Megan & Güereña, David, 2018. "Empirical assessment of subjective and objective soil fertility metrics in east Africa: Implications for researchers and policy makers," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 367-382.
    9. Rosbergen, Edward & Wedel, Michel & Pieters, Rik, 1997. "Analyzing visual attention tot repeated print advertising using scanpath theory," Research Report 97B32, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    10. Hang Guo & Linxian Liao & Junzeng Xu & Wenyi Wang & Peng Chen & Zhihui Min & Yajun Luan & Yu Han & Keke Bao, 2025. "Dual Role of Iron Oxides in Stabilizing Particulate and Mineral-Associated Organic Carbon Under Field Management in Paddies," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-18, June.
    11. Nalan Basturk & Richard Paap & Dick van Dijk, 2008. "Structural Differences in Economic Growth," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-085/4, Tinbergen Institute.
    12. Ninghui Xie & Liangjie Sun & Tong Lu & Xi Zhang & Ning Duan & Wei Wang & Xiaolong Liang & Yuchuan Fan & Huiyu Liu, 2025. "Effects of Adding Different Corn Residue Components on Soil and Aggregate Organic Carbon," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-14, May.
    13. Golob, Thomas F. & Regan, A C, 2002. "Trucking Industry Preferences for Driver Traveler Information Using Wireless Internet-enabled Devices," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt40q8h6sf, University of California Transportation Center.
    14. Golob, Thomas F. & Regan, A C, 2003. "Traffic Congestion and Trucking Managers' Use of Automated Routing and Scheduling," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt74z234n4, University of California Transportation Center.
    15. Naiara Escalante Mateos & Eider Goñi Palacios & Arantza Fernández-Zabala & Iratxe Antonio-Agirre, 2020. "Internal Structure, Reliability and Invariance across Gender Using the Multidimensional School Climate Scale PACE-33," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-24, July.
    16. Johnson, Trevor & McCallister, Donna & Lewis, Katie & Farmer, Michael, 2025. "Technical Potential of Agricultural Carbon Sequestration in the Texas High Plains," 2025 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2025, Denver, CO 360747, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Jakub Bekier & Elżbieta Jamroz & Karolina Walenczak-Bekier & Martyna Uściła, 2023. "Soil Organic Matter Composition in Urban Soils: A Study of Wrocław Agglomeration, SW Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-12, January.
    18. Lee, Jaehyung & Lee, Euntak & Yun, Jaewoong & Chung, Jin-Hyuk & Kim, Jinhee, 2021. "Latent heterogeneity in autonomous driving preferences and in-vehicle activities by travel distance," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    19. Liudmila Tripolskaja & Asta Kazlauskaite-Jadzevice & Eugenija Baksiene & Almantas Razukas, 2022. "Changes in Organic Carbon in Mineral Topsoil of a Formerly Cultivated Arenosol under Different Land Uses in Lithuania," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-19, March.
    20. Jung, Hyekyung & Schafer, Joseph L. & Seo, Byungtae, 2011. "A latent class selection model for nonignorably missing data," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 802-812, January.
    21. Emmanuel Afuecheta & Idika E. Okorie & Saralees Nadarajah & Geraldine E. Nzeribe, 2024. "Forecasting Value at Risk and Expected Shortfall of Foreign Exchange Rate Volatility of Major African Currencies via GARCH and Dynamic Conditional Correlation Analysis," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 63(1), pages 271-304, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:9:p:4844-:d:543489. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.