ENHANCED WEATHERING FOR CARBON SEQUESTRATION IN HIGH DISTURBANCE ORGANIC SYSTEMS - AN EVALUATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE POTENTIAL, SOIL FERTILITY AND AGRONOMIC IMPLICATIONS

The use of ERW for carbon capture is a nascent climate-smart practice with much of the information on its use still at the research stage. Despite this, the carbon markets are expanding rapidly and this form of agricultural carbon sequestration offers the highest payback to farmers and one of lowest barriers to entry being scale-neutral and simply used as a liming agent. While publications are beginning to emerge on efficacy on carbon dioxide removal potential there is extremely limited information on agronomic and soil fertility implication of its use. To our knowledge there is no information on ERW in organic systems in the U.S in any crop type. This is despite the fact the land application has begun at scale throughout the U.S. and in particular in North Carolina with such a large deposit of available material and an active carbon market. The goal of this research is to conduct foundational research on the both applied and basic understanding of integrating this climate smart practice into U.S. organic systems in the south east. Objectives:1. Evaluate the agronomic and soil fertility impact of substituting agricultural lime for ERW materials in organic row crop systemsGenerate liming equivalence estimates for improved target pH changes from field and lab incubationsQuantify plant available soil nutrients over 3 years after applicationMeasure yield, plant nutrient uptake and grain quality compared to conventional lime products2. Evaluate the agronomic and soil fertility impact of substituting agricultural lime for basalt materials in organic small acreage vegetable crops with the same sub-objectives as in Obj. 1. Led by NC&AT Co-PI Binswanath3. Evaluate the potential co-benefit of ERW application on greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 and N2O) mitigation in the field and lab4. Fully characterize basalt ERW, calculate weathering rates and estimate Carbon Dioxide Removal rates for the ERW product across varying soil types and the impact of biological weathering, using experimental data from the field, greenhouse and lab column trials5. Use a suite of extension strategies to build an information platform for this new climate-smart practice for organic growers