ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

The effect of agricultural management on the spatial distribution of organic matter in arable soil

Abstract: Agricultural management has a well-understood effect on total soil organic matter (OM) content. However, the spatial distribution of that OM within soil is not fully understood, and this is likely to control a range of vital soil and ecosystem functions including soil fertility, flood control and climate change mitigation. We aim to assess the effect of long-term agricultural management on the spatial distribution of OM in arable soil by developing a neutron tomography method to visualise the OM in three dimensions at the micro-scale, and then applying this to soil core samples taken from the famous long-term agricultural experiments at Rothamsted Research (UK). We will link farm practices that have altered the soil OM content, such as fertiliser and manure applications, to spatial patterns, and consequently to other soil properties and crop yield on these well-characterised experiments.

Principal Investigator: Dr Andrew Gregory
Experimenter: Dr Yang Gao
Experimenter: Professor J Crawford
Experimenter: Miss Yuan Liu
Experimenter: Dr Xiaoxian Zhang
Local Contact: Dr Winfried Kockelmann
Experimenter: Mrs Kamrun Suravi
Experimenter: Dr Richard Whalley
Experimenter: Mr Di Wang

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1820412

ISIS Experiment Number: RB1820412

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
Select the data format above to find out more about it.

Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Dr Andrew Gregory et al; (2018): The effect of agricultural management on the spatial distribution of organic matter in arable soil, STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1820412

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.