Impact of Winter Soil Processes on Nutrient Leaching in Cold Region Agroecosystems

This projects aims to examine the impact of freeze-thaw cycling on fertilizer leaching and nitrification inhibitor efficacy. Results suggest that nitrogen fertilizer is susceptible to nitrification following freeze-thaw cycling in agricultural soil and nitrification inhibitor effectiveness may be detrimentally affected by freeze-thaw cycling. Samples for both experiments were collected at the rare Charitable Reserve and project data was collected at the University of Waterloo Ecohydrology Research Group laboratories. Funding for this project was provided by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund under the Global Water Futures Program. For the dissolved organic carbon/total nitrogen and dissolved inorganic carbon data for both the soil column and sacrificial batch experiment, measurements were taken using a Shimadzu TOC-LCPH/CPN analyzer. For the ion chromatography data for both experiments, measurements were taken using a Dionex ICS-5000. pH and EC measurements were taken using LAQUA Horiba B-213 Twin meters. For the inductively coupled plasma measurements for both experiments, measurements were taken using a Thermo Scientific iCAP 6300.