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Project properties |
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| Title | Biological soil quality as affected by novel fertilizers input in diverse grassland systems |
| Group | Soil Biology |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 24-39 |
| Supervisor(s) | Giulia Bongiorno |
| Examiner(s) | prof.dr. Rachel Creamer |
| Contact info | giulia.bongiorno@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2022/01/01 |
| End date | |
| Description | One of the key challenges for agricultural systems is to use fertilizers more efficiently, which includes recycling waste into novel fertilizers and increasing the circularity of nitrogen use in the plant-soil system. When investigating the effect of recycled fertilizers on soil characteristics, the main parameter studied is the bulk soil fertility. Yet, the biological processes carried out by the soil biota determine the availability and plant uptake of nutrients from fertilizers, ultimately affecting plant growth with a major feed-back effect on the soil fertility. Despite this, our knowledge on the effects of recycled organic and mineral fertilizers in combination with plant diversity on soil biological processes with a more holistic determination of soil quality have rarely been assessed.
The proposed project will explore how biological soil health will respond to the application of a novel nitrogen fertilizers in relationship with plant diversity. The field experiment is located in Wageningen, the Netherlands, and was implemented in fall 2020. Five plant species are grown: three grass species (Lolium perenne, Festuca arundinacea and Phleum pratense), two clovers species (Trifolium pratense and Trifolium repens) and a mixture of all these five species. Novel mineral and organic fertilizers are applied. The selected candidate will learn, among others, how to sample bulk soil for soil quality assessment, how to analyse biological soil quality parameters (microbial functional diversity, biomarkers, processes related to nutrient cycling, enzymatic activities). |
| Used skills | Literature review, writing proposal and thesis, experimental design, field work, lab skills, statistical analysis. |
| Requirements | Required courses for MSc thesis Soil Biology |