Soil Health and Soil Fertility Assessment by the Haney Soil Health Test in an Agricultural Soil in West Tennessee

Agroecosystem management responses to Haney soil health test in the southeastern United States

“…Because duration of conservation management is a major factor in realizing soil health benefits (Daigh et al., 2018; Diaz‐Zorita & Grove, 2002; Nouri et al., 2020), the lack of responses in the CS study is attributed to its shorter duration (4 yr) compared with CC and SS studies (37 and 39 yr old, respectively). Our results from the CS study are in agreement with findings from the same experiment that showed that SHS2015 scores did not differ among 4 yr of cover crop treatments (Chu et al., 2019). Nonresponsiveness of SHS2015 on cropland management practices was also reported by Roper et al.…”

“…Despite a few random responses of H3A-and Mehlich-1-extractable nutrients to managements, in this study Mehlich-1 showed notably lower measurement variability than H3A (Supplemental Table S1). Regardless, the content of nutrients extracted by both H3A and Mehlich-1 solutions were in accordance with other studies conducted in the region (Bansal et al, 2020;Chu et al, 2019;Singh, Savoy, Yin, Schneider, & Jagadamma, 2019;Zhou, Yin, & Verbree, 2014).…”

“…These different versions of the soil health score calculation have been used in different published studies. For example, SHS2015 was used in Chu et al (2019), Mitchell et al (2017), and Roper, Osmond, Heitman, Wagger, and Reberg-Horton (2017), and SHS2018 was used in Bavougian, Shapiro, Stewart, and Eskridge (2019). Additionally, different commercial laboratories that offer HSHT use different versions of the equations: Midwest Laboratories uses Equation 1 (Midwest Laboratories, 2016), and Ward Laboratories uses a completely different version, Equation 3 (Ward Laboratories, 2019).…”

“…This could also be due to the way the indicators were integrated into a soil health score. Through principal component analysis, Chu (2017) showed that indicators used in the HSHT test better explained the variance in soil properties compared with the overall HSHT score. We believe that consideration of soil biological indicators alone and the unweighted approach to integrate indicators into soil health score are the two major issues limiting the sensitivity of the HSHT test across the regions and cropping systems.…”

Soil‐test biological activity with the flush of CO2: VIII. Soil type and management diversity

“…Soil-test biological activity (measured as the flush of CO 2 following rewetting of dried soil during 3 d of incubation at 25 • C and 50% water-filled pore space) has been shown to have a close association with net N mineralization (measured as cumulative inorganic N accumulation following rewetting of dried soil during 24 d of incubation at 25 • C and 50% water-filled pore space) in several studies in Georgia (Franzluebbers & Stuedemann, 2008;, North Carolina (Franzluebbers & Brock, 2007;Franzluebbers et al, 2018b) and across a diversity of soils with similar conservation management approaches in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas (Schomberg et al, 2009). However, when alternative methodologies were used for C and N determination, Chu et al (2019) found that the two measures were not so closely associated. Net N mineralization under aerobic and anaerobic incubation often have strong correlations (Schomberg et al, 2009;Soon, Haq, & Arshad, 2007) but can result in different absolute values depending on the incubation times selected.…”