SGS-LTER Effects of water and nitrogen additions to shortgrass ecosystems on the Central Plains Experimental Range, Nunn, Colorado, USA 2000 -

The objective of this research is to evaluate the long-term response of shortgrass ecosystems to additional water and nitrogen inputs. An experiemtn was conducted during the IBP project (1970-1975) in which water and nitrogen were applied (Lauenroth et al. 1978, Dodd and Lauenroth 1979, Milchunas and Lauenroth 1995). While we gained an enormous increment in our knowledge about shortgrass ecosystems from this experiment it raised as many questions as it answered. One of the problems was that the treatments were very high levels of nitrogen (100-150kg/ha N) and water (600 mm/growing season) additions.