Project Grant NR183A750008G015

This Cooperative Agreement award of $995,706.60 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Soil and Water Conservation program (CFDA 10.902) will fund technical assistance, outreach, educational, and peer-to-peer networking activities through the Central Coast Soil Hub. The project aims to support land managers in implementing conservation practices, improving soil health, and promoting climate-smart agriculture in California's central coast region....

This Cooperative Agreement award from the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Soil Survey Program (CFDA 10.903) provides $499,643.00 to the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) to develop a quantitative photography method for documenting and assessing root-fungi in the field as potential biological indicators of soil health. The award will be used over the project period from Sep 15, 2024 to Sep 30, 2027 to research innovative soil...

This Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) (CFDA 10.310) totaling $749,045 is designed to comprehensively assess the long-term (10-15 year) impacts of early- and late-terminated cover crops on soil organic carbon pools and soil health indicators within the soil profile to at least 1 meter depth. The project will leverage two existing 10-year experiments in...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Resources Conservation Service awarded a $299,894 Cooperative Agreement to the Gold Ridge Resource Conservation District in California. The funding will be used to expand the North Coast Soil Hub and Carbon Farming Network in order to provide climate-smart grazing lands technical assistance. This project aims to address the need for grazing lands technical assistance rooted in climate-smart agriculture principles. The award period runs from August...

This $899,202 project grant, awarded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program (CFDA 10.310), aims to address the challenges of water scarcity and groundwater nitrate contamination faced by agricultural communities in California's Central Coast region. Through a combination of controlled trials and on-farm participatory research, the project will investigate how different cover crop management practices can...

This $299,491 cooperative agreement awarded by the United States Department of Agriculture National Resources Conservation Service will fund research at the University of California, Davis to develop the use of mid-infrared spectroscopy as an emerging soil survey technology. The goal is to predict certain dynamic soil properties related to soil health. The project aligns with the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program's objective to conserve farm and ranch lands by limiting conversion to...

This Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) under CFDA 10.902 Soil and Water Conservation provides $491,803 to Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech) to explore using soil color as a low-cost tool for simultaneously monitoring soil organic matter amount and physicochemical characteristics. The project aims to support sustainable agriculture practices and natural resource conservation...

This Cooperative Agreement, awarded by the United States Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) under the Soil Survey Federal Grant Program (CFDA 10.903), provides $270,000.00 in funding to the University of Illinois to advance the use of soil enzyme activities as biological indicators of soil health and nutrient cycling. The project, with a performance period from November 1, 2024 to October 31, 2027, aims to develop new methods for interpreting soil enzyme...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) awarded a $438,322 Cooperative Agreement to the Research Foundation of the City University of New York (RFCUNY) to contribute to the development of an urban soil health assessment framework that links digital soil property (DSP) data and soil health metrics, aligning with various ongoing NRCS initiatives. The project, with a performance period from September 3, 2024 to September 29, 2026, is funded under the...

This $2,907,825 Cooperative Agreement awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Integrative Activities (CFDA 47.083) aims to develop and assess agricultural management practices that can help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, improve soil health and water quality, and enhance the resilience of crop production to droughts caused by climate change. The project is a collaboration among Auburn University, New Mexico State University, and the University of Delaware, with the goal of...