Enhanced U.S. soil carbon mapping with AI

Apr 04, 2024

By Farms.com

The battle against climate change receives a significant boost from an innovative approach to measuring soil organic carbon. By employing machine learning to analyze extensive soil sample data, scientists have crafted a more precise continental-scale estimate of soil organic carbon in the United States, as reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research — Biogeosciences.

This research underscores soil's pivotal role as a carbon sink and its capacity to impact climate change mitigation efforts. With nearly 50,000 soil samples from various U.S. regions analyzed, the study reveals how different environmental variables, including climate and vegetation, influence soil carbon levels.

The approach not only rectifies inconsistencies in previous estimates but also paves the way for targeted land management strategies that could enhance carbon sequestration. This advancement is crucial for policymakers and land managers striving to implement climate-smart practices.

The collaboration of experts from Emory University, Colorado State University, and several national laboratories, supported by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy, marks a significant step toward harnessing the power of soil in climate mitigation efforts.

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators