Project Number: 6206-11220-005-09
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Jan 01, 2011
End Date: Dec 31, 2015

Objective:
Measure soil microbial activity and soil carbon fractions of pretreatment soils collected from the Long Term Biomass Experiment at Temple, TX.

Approach:
GSWRL will collect soils from 24 experimental plots. Soil samples consist of soils from 0-3, 3-6, 6-12, 12-24, and 24-36" depth increments from three pooled 1.5" diameter cores per plot. Coarse (>250 micrometer) and fine (250-53 micrometer) particulate organic matter will be assessed on these samples using established procedures. Active soil microbial biomass will be determined using a substrate-induced respiration technique, and long-term (1-year) laboratory incubations will be conducted on two subsamples from each plot. These 1-year incubations will be used to determine soil pool sizes and turnover using a two-pool model of soil organic matter decomposition.