CSA News Volume 69 Issue 4 cover

News & Perspectives

Presidents messages

Societies offer opportunities for interactions across early-, mid-, and senior-career stages; across subdisciplines; and across institutions and companies.

CSSA Values Its Early Career Members

April 22, 2024

Publications

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Calls for Nominations: Society Editor-in-Chief, Journal and Magazine Editors

April 4, 2024

Meetings

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Sustainable Agronomy Conference Returns for Its Seventh Year!

March 11, 2024

People

In memoriam

Douglas Merkler

In Memoriam: Douglas Merkler and Cheryl Palm

April 4, 2024

Students

Testing a device in the field prior to actual data collection. Photo by Ana Morales-Ona.

How Reliable Is Your Data? Common Mistakes to Avoid in the Field, Greenhouse, and Lab

March 17, 2024

Careers & Education

Early career members

Users should be aware of the limitations of AI chatbots and disclose their use in scientific work. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock/TON_PHOTO.

User Experiences: Early Career Members’ Feedback About AI Chatbots

March 17, 2024

Education

Scenes from February 2024 GEMS event at the Whitaker Center in Fort Meyers, FL where students learned about soils through various activities.

Inspiring Middle School Girls to Pursue STEM Careers

March 11, 2024

2026 Sustainable Agronomy Conference

April 2024 issue

Volume 69, Issue 4

Inside this issue

Though lead was phased out of gasoline, paint, and other products decades ago, this toxic heavy metal still lingers as contamination today. City soils, from parks to community gardens to playgrounds, are notable hotspots. Here, featuring research presented at the ASA, CSSA, and SSSA Annual Meeting and published in Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems, we look at several facets of the issue. Cover: A handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzer for in-field soil lead testing in a city park. Photo courtesy of Anna Paltseva.

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Science

Features

Soil microbes. Image courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Reprinted here under this license: https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

Unlocking the Secrets of Soil: Exploring the Microbiome and Its Applications—Part 1

April 22, 2024

A community garden in New York City where legacy lead contamination can linger for decades. Photo courtesy of Anna Paltseva.

The Legacy of Lead in City Soils

April 22, 2024

Science briefs

Conservation acres under selected practices in the Mississippi Delta region during 2005–2022. Image courtesy of USDA-NRCS (2023).

Do Farmers Continue Conservation Practices After Government Funding Ends?

April 11, 2024

A schematic exploring the USEPA’s changes to pesticide registration to meet Endangered Species Act obligations, including the introduc- tion of a menu of suggested mitigation measures for applicators to choose from. Source: Duzy et al. (2023).

USEPA’s Addition of Mitigation Measures Adds Complexities to Pesticide Use

April 11, 2024

Aerial view of the oil spill remediation site and research plots with inset showing the thermal desorption unit used to treat soils during this project. Photos by Vern Whitten and Peter O’Brien.

Outcomes of Oil Spill Remediation Using Thermal Desorption

April 11, 2024

Researcher Michael Itam oversees the growth chamber study of turfgrasses exposed to drought stress at Michigan State University. Photo by Emily Merewitz.

Early Stress Detection in Kentucky Bluegrass and Perennial Ryegrass

March 17, 2024

A depiction of the development of FHB-resistant spring wheat ger- mplasm WGC002, which contains the wild grass–derived resistance gene Fhb7The2. Image courtesy of Xiewen Cai.

A New Spring Wheat Germplasm Resistant to Fusarium Head Blight

March 11, 2024

Century-old kiln sites are visible as darker oval spots on a bare soil. Image courtesy of Martin Zanutel (UCLouvain).

Effect of Biochar Age and Concentration on Soil Physical Properties

March 11, 2024

Aerial photograph of a tile-drained plot containing a cereal rye cover crop following a 5 cm rainfall in central Illinois. Photo by Jason Solberg.

Split Fertilizer Application With Cover Crop Reduces Tile Nitrate Loads

March 11, 2024

Left: Sarah Brickman, a master’s student at the University of Vermont, injects a greenhouse gas sample into a glass vial at Borderview Research Farm in Alburgh, VT. Photo by Karin Rand. Right: A Veenhuis Euroject 1200 grassland injector applies manure to a subplot at the farm. Photo by Sarah Brickman.

Manure Application Methods Do Not Drive N₂O Emissions in a Hayfield

March 11, 2024

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