What we do

Our Soil Interrogation Lab at Montana State University in Bozeman works on soils across Montana, with a current (2022-6) focus on the Blackfeet Nation. If we're not in the field sampling or setting up experiments, you'll most likely find us air-drying soil samples, homogenizing them, oven-drying them, or burning/baking them in a 680°F furnace to determine a sample's so-called "loss on ignition," which is an excellent and inexpensive proxy (substitute) for soil organic matter. And once all of our analyses are done, of course we jump into the analyses and reporting and visualizations. And we get that we don't get to decide what counts as "science communication"--it's always the recipient who gets to make this call. So we listen and collaborate with our "audience" iteratively. Some of the so-called "climate-smart" agricultural practices we look forward to testing include high-intensity rotational grazing (also known as bison mimicry), beaver mimicry, snowfencing, soil amendments such as biochar, bale grazing, swath grazing, and combinations thereof. 

Weirdly, we are unapologetic fans of Breaking Bad. 

Objectives: 

1. Find and test a reliable way to measure long-lived soil organic matter (SOM) to index forms of SOM unlikely to be metabolized right back into the carbon dioxide (CO₂) from whence most SOM comes via photosynthesis.

2. Find and test ways to engage and hook future soil stewards on soils. Unfortunately, soil is not the most exciting topic. That's unfortunate, given how much we all depend on enlightened stewardship of soils--either directly as producers or indirectly as consumers.