Examining net greenhouse gas impacts of soil health practices – using the FAST-GHG tool and key research results.

Soil health practices such as reduced tillage, cover crops, and nitrogen fertilizer management affect greenhouse gas emissions in many ways. This seminar will use the FAST-GHG tool, which allows a user to consider the different ways these practices and their interactions affect greenhouse gas emissions. Participants will come away with a better understanding of how crop and soil nitrogen cycling, crop yield, and equipment use affect the greenhouse gas impacts of different soil health practices (such as reduced tillage, cover crops, and nitrogen fertilizer management).

This series is co-hosted with the USDA Northeast Climate Hub.

The Soils section on October 21, is also co-hosted with the Soil Health Initiative.

This series is supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Smith Lever Project 2019-20-110.

BIO

Peter Woodbury is a Senior Research Associate in the Section of Soil and Crop Sciences at Cornell University. He has decades of experience researching how air quality, water quality, and soil quality are affected by climate change, and also how agriculture and forestry can mitigate and adapt to climate change. For example, Dr. Woodbury has worked with an international team to assess Natural Climate Solutions, quantifying how 20 pathways of improved management of agricultural, forest, and wetlands can reduce GHG emissions to meet 37% of the Paris Agreement target by year 2030 globally, and offset 21% of US emissions.