Our faculty works across all of the diverse aspects of soil science (soil biological, chemical, and physical processes; soil as a supplier of water and nutrients to plants, a host to an array of living organisms, and natural and imposed events can degrade soils). We do this in concert with the broad array of animal and crop production systems in our state to support economically and environmentally sustainable practices.
Faculty
Colin Campbell, Decagon Devices
My current research focuses on water availability to plant processes in the soil/plant/atmosphere and its role in plant species progression and dormancy along with water conservation. Paramount to this effort is the conversion of sensor measurements to actionable information, so these projects include interdisciplinary collaboration between ecology, agriculture, environmental biophysics, and bioinformatics. The goal of this work is to provide stakeholders with better understanding upon which to base critical environmental decision-making.
Lynne Carpenter-Boggs
I conduct research in sustainable and organic agriculture, with an emphasis on biological soil fertility. Current project areas include life cycle analysis of farming, management for soil health, mycorrhizal colonization of alternative crops, acid-tolerant rhizobia, and compost tea.
Doug Cobos, Decagon Devices
Through my “day job” at Decagon Devices, my research is primarily applied instrumentation development to improve biophysical observations. But, I sometimes get the chance to use those instruments to conduct basic research on biophysical interactions in the soil-plan t-atmosphere continuum.
Markus Flury
Dr. Flury’s research interest is in the area of flow and transport in porous media, particularly in the vadose zone. Specific areas include: (1) Characterization of water flow and solute transport in the vadose zone, (2) colloid and colloid-facilitated contaminant transport through the vadose zone, (3) soil physical instrumentation and their applications, (4) sustainable use of soil resources.
Kim Garland Campbell, USDA-ARS
My research focuses on identification and manipulation of mechanisms of genetic resistance to cold and improvement of wheat end use quality, specifically for club and soft white wheat. My research also focuses on statistical methods of identifying, controlling, and exploting genotype by environment interaction.
Deirdre Griffin LaHue
My research focuses on the impacts of agricultural practices (e.g. cover cropping, tillage, amendments, rotations) on soil health and the soil organisms that facilitate many of the functions we look for in a healthy soil, including strong aggregate structure, efficient cycling of nutrients and carbon, and disease suppression. I take a systems approach to understand processes occurring at the micro-scale, such as microbial community shifts, nutrient dynamics, or changes in carbon pools, and to link them to outcomes at the field-scale to develop soil management strategies that will improve the productivity, profitability, and long-term resilience of our cropping systems. I am also working to identify regionally-relevant benchmark values of soil health indicators to track progress towards improved soil sustainability.
Dave Huggins, USDA-ARS
Dave Huggins is Director of the Cook Agronomy Farm Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) site and Co-Director of the Pacific Northwest Climate Hub. His research is in the area of Conservation Farming and Agroecology focusing on nitrogen use efficiency, carbon sequestration and overall agroecosystem performance.
Pete Jacoby
Research activities address water movement within the vadose zone in woody perennial cropping systems. Specifically, current work is focused on use of subsurface irrigation systems in wine and juice grapes to more effectively employ deficit irrigation strategies for water conservation and improved fruit quality.
Gabriel LaHue
My research program focuses on soil-water relations, soil fertility, and water-nutrient interactions. Key questions include: How can we manage soils to improve water relations, and how can we manage water to optimize soil processes and plant productivity? In western Washington where my research program is based, infiltration and hydraulic conductivity are central considerations for farmers wanting to get excess water off the field during the wet winters, but dry summers and limitations on irrigation mean that the soil’s water-holding capacity quickly becomes a key factor. Soil fertility is also an active area of research, especially the nutrient requirements of understudied crops and the relationship between soil properties and nutrient management. Lastly, the interactions between water and nutrients are an area of particular interest to me, such as the application of fertilizers or pesticides through irrigation systems and soil moisture effects on nutrient availability and losses.
Kevin Murphy
My program, the Sustainable Seed Systems Lab, is focused on the breeding and agronomy of barley, quinoa, millet, spelt, and perennial wheat. We work closely with farmers on regional to international scales to develop high yielding, nutritionally dense seed crop varieties for a diversity of cropping systems.
Haly Neely
The goal of our lab is to quantify the interaction of soil, water, and plants at the field-scale to improve soil health and ecosystem resilience. Research activities can be grouped under two areas: 1) conserve water and protect the soil through soil health promoting practices and, 2) using sensor technology to quantify spatial soil moisture dynamics.
Karen Sanguinet
My research program focuses on the molecular genetic and genomic cues that govern root development in grasses. We use B. distachyon as a model as well as wheat to study how roots grow in their native and diverse soil environments. In addition, we study how the plant cell well and hormones mediate morphogenesis in the root.
Zhenqing Shi
Dr. Zhenqing Shi is an adjunct faculty at CSS and now is a professor at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, China. His current research focuses on the interactions of heavy metals with soil and soil components with both theoretical and experimental approaches.
Tarah Sullivan
My research emphasizes linking the function and phylogeny of the soil microbiome, specifically with regard to interactions with plant roots and impacts on metal bioavailability and plant uptake. The soil microbiome is key in the biotransformations of many micronutrients and metals in the rhizosphere; these consortia and the mechanisms involved, drives my work.