The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is a U.S. federal land conservation program that incentivizes grassland reestablishment on marginal lands. Although this program has many environmental benefits, two critical questions remain: does reestablishing grasslands via CRP also result in soil health recovery, and what parts of restored fields (i.e., topographic positions) recover the fastest? We hypothesized that soil health will recover over time after converting cropland to CRP grassland and that recovery will be greatest at higher topographic positions. To test this, we sampled 241 midwestern U.S. soils along a grassland chronosequence (0–40 yr, including native grasslands) and at four topographic positions (i.e., a chronotoposequence). Soils were measured for bulk density, maximum water holding capacity (MWHC), soil organic C (SOC), extractable inorganic N, potentially mineralizable C (PMC), and N. Native grasslands had superior soil health compared with cropland and most CRP soils, and even 40 yr since grassland reestablishment was not adequate for full soil health recovery. Topographic position strongly influenced soil health indicators and often masked any CRP effect, especially with MWHC and SOC. However, PMC (a measure of active C) responded most rapidly to CRP and consistently across the landscape and was 26–34% greater 19–40 yr after grassland reestablishment. Reestablishing grasslands through CRP can improve soil health, although topographic position regulates the recovery, with greatest improvements at shoulder slope positions. Patience is needed to observe changes in soil health, even in response to a drastic management change like conversion of cropland to CRP grassland. Disciplines Agriculture | Agronomy and Crop Sciences | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | Soil Science Comments This article is published as De, Mriganka, Jason A. Riopel, Larry J. Cihacek, Michael Lawrinenko, Rebecca Baldwin‐Kordick, Steven J. Hall, and Marshall D. McDaniel. "Soil health recovery after grassland reestablishment on cropland–the effects of time and topographic position." Soil Science Society of America Journal 84 (2020): 568-586. doi: 10.1002/saj2.20007. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License Authors Mriganka De, Jason A. Riopel, Larry J. Cihacek, Michael Lawrinenko, Rebecca Baldwin-Kordick, Steven J. Hall, and Marshall D. McDaniel This article is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/eeob_ag_pubs/386 Received: 8 June 2019 Accepted: 6 November 2019 Published online: 8 April 2020 DOI: 10.1002/saj2.20007 S O I L & WAT E R M A N A G E M E N T & C O N S E R VAT I O N Soil health recovery after grassland reestablishment on cropland: The effects of time and topographic position Mriganka De1 Jason A. Riopel2 Larry J. Cihacek2 Michael Lawrinenko1 Rebecca Baldwin-Kordick1 Steven J. Hall3 Marshall D. McDaniel1 Iowa State University, Department of Agronomy, 2401 Agronomy Hall, Farm House Lane, Ames, IA 50011, USA North Dakota State University, Soil Science, 136 Walster Hall, NDSU Department 7680, PO Box 6050, Fargo, ND 58108-6050, USA Iowa State University, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, 251 Bessey Hall, 2200 Osborne Drive, Ames,
Soil health recovery after grassland reestablishment on cropland: The effects of time and topographic position
Mriganka De,J. Riopel,L. Cihacek,Michael Lawrinenko,Rebecca Baldwin‐Kordick,S. Hall,M. McDaniel
Published 2020 in Soil Science Society of America Journal
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2020
- Venue
Soil Science Society of America Journal
- Publication date
2020-03-01
- Fields of study
Environmental Science
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar
CITATION MAP
EXTRACTION MAP
CLAIMS
- No claims are published for this paper.
CONCEPTS
- No concepts are published for this paper.
REFERENCES
CITED BY
Showing 1-53 of 53 citing papers · Page 1 of 1