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INVESTIGATOR: Rosen, C.

PERFORMING INSTITUTION:
UNIV OF MINNESOTA
ST PAUL, MINNESOTA 55108

ENHANCING SOIL HEALTH IN US POTATO PRODUCTION SYSTEMS

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Critical Need and Rationale: In the U.S., potatoes are grown on over 1 million acres in 30 states with a farm-gate value of approximately $4 billion. The top nine producing states (Idaho, Washington, Oregon, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine and Colorado) comprise four major U.S. growing regions (Pacific Northwest, Upper Midwest, Northeast, and Southwest). Soil health is a term used to identify the condition of a soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals and humans. A major focus of soil health is on maintaining and enhancing soil organic matter and a beneficial soil microbial community. Soilborne diseases in potato production represent a major challenge to the potato industry often requiring fumigation for their control. Increasing evidence exists that incorporating practices to improve soil health may be a sustainable option for mitigating the effects of soilborne diseases. However, enhancing soil health in potato cropping systems is a challenge because of the significant soil disturbance that occurs during potato planting and harvest, lack of organic residue associated with potato vines, difficulty in establishing a cover crop following harvest in some regions, and the need to rely on fumigation to control diseases. This project will address significant knowledge gaps related to the complex relationships among factors affecting soil health and potato soilborne diseases. Our studies will consider the entire potato cropping system, including potato cultivar, rotation crops, biological control options, and cover crops to identify management practices that enhance soil health and reduce soilborne diseases and to identify indicators of soil health associated with those practices across the major U.S. potato production areas. The overall result will be to enhance environmental quality and to sustain the economic viability of potato operations in the U.S.Methods, Approaches and Expected Accomplishments: This project involves a team of 24 collaborators consisting of soil scientists, plant pathologists, potato agronomists, and social scientists. Field experiments with defined potato rotations will be established to evaluate the effects of potato cultivar, fumigation, crop rotation, cover crops, green manures, microbial inoculants, and nutrient amendments on biological, chemical and physical soil health indicators, as well as on potato health and yields. Next generation sequencing DNA analysis will be used to identify soil microbial communities associated with practices that enhance soil health. An on-farm network of sites throughout major commercial potato production areas will be established to evaluate spatial variability of soil health indicators and plant health/productivity data. This information will be used to develop a soil health assessment and soilborne pathogen risk-advisory tool for precision management of potato. The next step will be to identify factors affecting adoption of practices and technologies that improve soil health in potato production systems. Monetary and non-monetary informational requirements necessary for potato growers to adopt recommended soil enhancement practices will be identified and a model to identify optimal crop rotations with potatoes will be developed. The information generated will be used to develop state, regional and national extension programs in potato soil health that will lead to greater adoption of sustainable management practices. By the end of this project, our vision is to develop two regional manuals on potato soil health (Northwest/Southwest and Midwest/East) that provide soil health information appropriate for each region.

OBJECTIVES: The major goal of this project is to establish physical, chemical, and biological indicators of soil health for sustainable potato production. The specific objectives for this project are as follows:1) Enhance potato health, productivity, and quality via management-based optimization of soil microbiomes and physicochemical characteristics.2) Determine on-farm soil health-based indicators associated with potato crop health, yield and quality.3) Identify the incentives, impediments, and determinants of adopting practices and technologies that encourage practices to improve soil health in potato production.4) Facilitate adoption of soil health best management practice systems by the potato industry.