Cornell Soil Health Assessment Update.

The Cornell Soil Health Assessment is an integrative dynamic soil quality assessment combining physical, biological, and chemical measures of soil characteristics as indicators of the functioning of important soil processes.  It has been available for public testing since 2007, and currently is offered through the Cornell Nutrient Analysis Lab.  The comprehensive assessment provides several relevant tests, with interpretation, and uses these in identification of constraints to proper functioning.  These constraints generally are found less in the chemical than the physical or biological indicators, suggesting that while nutrient conditions are managed successfully, degradation in physical and biological functioning requires further attention.  Within the Cornell assessment, the biological indicator set has been revised for 2014, removing one indicator and adding two others.  Scoring functions, which relate measured values to management-relevant scaling, have been developed for the new indicators, and adjusted for the preexisting indicators.  The Cornell Soil Health Assessment reporting has been updated to include, in addition to a detailed scoring summary, more in depth treatment of each indicator separately, and management guidance suggestions for addressing identified constraints to maintain proper soil condition. This is aligned with progress toward creating soil health management plans (in collaboration with the NRCS in NH and NY), with identified practices keyed to management suggestions.  We are also carrying out greenhouse studies linking functional N cycling in submitted soil samples with combinations of measured indicators, and we are exploring the development of separate combinatorial indices for indicator categories and for water quality impact risk evaluation.  Current developments and future plans will be discussed.