Virginia Jin - USDA ARS Research Soil Scientist

Aerial view of field
Photo courtesy USDA ARS

More Diverse Crop Rotations Improve Yield, Yield Stability and Soil Health

October 25, 2021
Results from a long-term rainfed no-till crop rotation and nitrogen (N) fertilizer systems study, which concluded that crop rotation has more agronomic and soil benefits compared to fertilizer-N alone.

Read more

Figure 1. A view of all four treatments of a corn residue and cover crop experiment at the South Central Agricultural Laboratory near Clay Center. Top left is cereal rye with 60% corn residue removal; top right is cereal with corn residue. Bottom left is no cereal rye with 60% corn residue removal; bottom right is corn residue and no cover crop (control).
Figure 1. A view of all four treatments from a corn residue and cover crop experiment at the South Central Agricultural Laboratory near Clay Center. Top left is cereal rye with 60% corn residue removal; top right is cereal with corn residue. Bottom left is no cereal rye with 60% corn residue removal; bottom right is corn residue and no cover crop (control).

Cover Crop and Crop Residue Management: How Does it Affect Soil Water in the Short and Long Term?

August 13, 2018
How you manage your soil today impacts its productivity tomorrow. This article focuses on how plant residue management and cover crop use affect water infiltration and plant available water.

Read more

Taking CO2 measurements in plots where residue has been baled
Taking CO2 measurements in plots where residue has been baled

Corn Residue Removal and CO2 Emissions

February 26, 2018
University research looking at CO2 emissions from two types of residue removal (baling and grazing) compared with a control treatment found little day-to-day impact; however, when looking at cumulative data for the whole year, grazing did appear to affect cumulative CO2 emissions in irrigated crop-livestock systems. This data represents the first year of this study.

Read more

CO2 sensor in rye cover crop

Cover Crop and CO2 Emissions

February 26, 2018
Do cover crops affect CO2 emissions from the soil and if so, under what conditions? These were among the questions addressed by university researchers monitoring CO2 emissions from cereal rye cover crops in irrigated and dryland no-till continuous corn treatments.

Read more