Scientists from the USDA-ARS Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) Network will be presenting research at the 2024 American Geophysical Union Annual meeting in Washington, DC, December 9-13. This is the world’s largest gathering of earth scientists, drawing over 25,000 attendees from more than 100 countries. These research efforts represent the LTAR Network’s goal to improve sustainable agricultural practices across production, environmental, economic, and social domains.
The research topics presented focus on improving farming practices and understanding the environment to make agriculture more sustainable. Key areas of investigation include the use of remote sensing and machine learning to quantify crop health and ecosystem functions, the impact of cover crops and grazing management on soil health and carbon sequestration, and the role of groundwater in adapting to climate change. Studies also explore effective communication of agricultural research, development of sustainability indicators, and the use of drones and LiDAR for monitoring land and water resources.
AGU session topics showcasing LTAR research include:
- remote sensing,
- small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS),
- sustainable agriculture,
- agroecosystem management,
- climate change,
- evapotranspiration (ET),
- water resources management,
- agricultural decarbonization,
- conservation,
- healthy watersheds,
- hydrologic modeling,
- nitrous oxide,
- nitrogen-climate interactions,
- science communication,
- and long-term ecosystem engineering.
AGU Presentations
- Using Video to Communicate U.S. Agricultural Research: Outcomes and Lessons Learned in the Long-Term Agroecosystem Network (Mark Kautz, Cathleen Hapeman, Teferi Tsegaye, Claire Baffaut, Mike Cosh, Gerardo Armendariz, Seth Archer)
- Understanding Hydrologic Processes in Response to Cover Crop Mixes in Soybean Farms in the Mississippi Delta (Mahesh Lal Maskey, Amanda Nelson, G. David Spencer, Christopher Delhom, and Drew M. Gholson)
- LiDAR, Laser Penetration Indices, and Machine Learning to Quantify Leaf Area Index for Corn (Zea mays L.) (K. Colton Flynn, Gurjinder Baath, Bala Ram Sapkota, Douglas R. Smith)
- LTAR and lessons learned from GRACEnet (Curtis Dell)
- An ecological framework to assess agroecosystem sensitivity to precipitation across the US (Olivia L. Hajek, Nicole Kaplan, Shefali Azad, Philip A. Fay, Makki Khorchani, Amanda M. Nelson, Adam P. Schreiner-McGraw, Lori Abendroth, Claire Baffaut, John Baker, Brandon T. Bestelmeyer, Elizabeth H. Boughton, Dawn M. Browning, Bryan R. Carlson, Michel Cavigelli, Patrick Clark, Curtis Dell, Yuxi Guo, John Hendrickson, David Huggins, Mir Zaman Hussain, Kevin King, John L. Kovar, Mark Liebig, Martin Locke, Marty Schmer, Maria L. Silveira, Doug Smith, Keirith A. Snyder, Pat Starks, Kathryn White, Brook Wilke, David L. Hoover)
- Adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) rotational grazing impacts on carbon fluxes in a semiarid rangeland (Mikael Hiestand, David Augustine, Justin Derner, Lauren M Porensky, David Smith and David L Hoover)
- Developing a Framework to Facilitate Communication and Collaboration on Science for Climate Smart Agriculture in the LTAR Network (Lindsey Witthaus, Phil Heilman, Shana Sundstrom, David Hoover, Craig Allen, Adam Schreiner-McGraw, Merilynn Schantz, Nick Webb, Guillermo Ponce-Campos, Lori Abendroth, Betsey Boughton)
- Evapotranspiration in Rainfed and Irrigated Alfalfa in the U.S. Southern Great Plains (Pradeep Wagle, Afshin Shayeghi, Nishan Bhattarai, Brian K. Northup, Corey Moffet, Stacey A. Gunter, and Rudra Baral)
- Smooth Bromegrass pasture performance under different management practices in the Midwest of the United States (Makki Khorchani , Hassan Shehab , Anastasios Mazis , Galen Erickson , Marty Schmer , Virginia Jin , Jeremy Hiller and Tala Awada)
- Cropland albedo as a potential climate solution (Jiangui Liu, Devon Worth, Raymond L. Desjardins, Stuart Admiral, Budong Qian, Jiali Shang, David Pelster, Dan MacDonald, Andrew Davidson, Tao He)
- Year-long eddy covariance measurements of Greenhouse Gas Fluxes (CO2, CH4, and N2O) over a grazed pasture in the Midwest (Xiangmin Sun, Andy Suyker, Galen Erickson, Rebecca McDermott, Makki Khorchani, Tala Awada, Yijie, Xiong)
- Climate Change Increases the Importance of Shallow Groundwater in a Rainfed Cropland With Shallow Soils in the U.S. Corn Belt (Adam Schreiner-McGraw, Claire Baffaut)
- Crop Model Performance in Simulating Short-and Long-term Cover Crop Effects on Soil and Subsequent Cash Crop (Eunjin Han, Kathryn E. White, Dennis Timlin, Zhuangji Wang)
- History and Applications of the Two-Source Energy Balance Model (William Kustas, John Norman, George Diak, Chris Hain, Yun Yang, Hector Nieto, Thomas Holmes)
- Comparing two cases of co-production of a sustainability indicators framework for the Long-term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network (Alia DeLong, Matthew McIntosh, Sheri Spiegal, Megan Donovan, Elizabeth Boughton, Hilary Swain, Maria Silveira, and Brent Sellers)
- Metaphor and design toward communicating and understanding long-term agricultural research (Seth Archer, Mark Kautz, Cathleen Hapeman, Nicole Kaplan, Gerardo Armendariz, and Carol McFarland)
- Process-based USDA Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) model for hillslope and small watershed runoff, soil loss, and sediment yield predictions (Dennis Flanagan, Jim Frankenberger, Anurag Srivastava, Ryan McGehee, Olaf David, Erin Brooks, Pete Robichaud, Chris Renschler, Bernie Engel)
- Quantifying nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from agricultural watersheds using a mobile floating chamber method (Allison Herreid, Brent Dalzell)
- Drone-based Measurements of Structural Diversity in Rangelands (Peter Olsoy, Stella Copeland, Trevor Caughlin)
- Resolving the relationship between spectral reflectance and dissolved organic carbon in irrigation ponds in the Little River Experimental Watershed using UAS multispectral imagery (Andrea Albright, Alisa Coffin, Oliva Pisani)
- Advancing effective agroecosystem sustainability performance indicators via the USDA Long-Term Agroecosystem Research Network (LTAR) (Megan Donovan, Sheri Spiegal, Nicole Kaplan, David Archer, Alycia Bean, Sarah Beebout, Brandon Bestelmeyer, Patrick Clark, Alia DeLong, Ann-Marie Fortuna, Claire Friedrichsen, David Hoover, David Huggins, Peter J. A. Kleinman, Matthew McIntosh, Chris Renschler, John Ritten, Douglas Smith, Nicholas Webb & J.D. Wulfhorst)
- Long-Term Agroecosystem Research Network: Strategic Goals, Lessons Learned and Knowledge Gaps (David Huggins)
- Estimation of Total Leaf Area Index in Sagebrush Steppe with RGB Based Unmanned Aircraft Systems (Craig Woodruff, Patrick Clark)
- Remote sensing advances with small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) in the USDA Long-Term Agroecosystem Research Network (Alisa Coffin, Andrea Albright, Colton Flynn, Lucas Heintzmann)
- SnowPix: A Regional Network of Automated Daily Snow Monitoring Supporting Decision Tools for Resilient Forests and Water Resources (Joel A. Biederman, Ravindra Dwivedi, Patrick D. Broxton, Marcos D. Robles, Jessie K. Pearl, Willem J.D. van Leeuwen, Bohumil M. Svoma, Temuulen Sankey, Jake Kurzweil, and Jackson M. Leonard)
- Using Artificial Intelligence to Extend the Spectral Range of UAS Imagery (Paul R Adler, Arif Masrur, Peder Olsen, Carlan Jackson)
- A Framework for Spatiotemporal Improvement of Actual Evapotranspiration Estimates Using Neural Networks and Remote Sensing Data (Ali Dadkhah, Donna M Rizzo, Luis A Garcia, Paul R Adler, George F Pinder, Patrick J Clemins, Jitender Rathore and Asim Zia
- Variability of Ecosystem Productivity Responses to the 21st Century Megadrought (Erika Gallo and Russ Scott)
- Effects of Biological Soil Crusts on Surficial Processes on Coarse Textured Soils (Erin Phelps, Jason Williams, Jia Hu, Austin Rutherford, BLM, Viktor Polyakov)