Session: Special Session Symposium--Driving Multifunctionality through Soil Processes: Impacts of Diversified Farming Systems on Soil Biology and Biogeochemistry

Division: Special Sessions

Title: Special Session Symposium--Driving Multifunctionality through Soil Processes: Impacts of Diversified Farming Systems on Soil Biology and Biogeochemistry

Lead Community Sponsor:
Cosponsor: SSSA Division: Soils and Environmental Quality
Community Cosponsor:
Format: Oral Symposium
Keywords: Above to below-ground interactions , ecosystem services, multifunctional agriculture and soil biology and biogeochemistry

Session Description: The wide range of soil organisms, and the biogeochemical and ecological processes they drive, play key roles in multifunctional agricultural systems. Such systems are urgently needed and emphasize moving beyond a sole focus on crop production by enhancing ecosystem services both to and from agriculture. By restoring aboveground-belowground connections and creating positive plant-soil feedbacks, farming practices that diversify plants in space and time (e.g. crop rotations, crop diversity, cover cropping, polycultures, and intercropping) are a promising means of managing soil biology to enhance multiple ecosystem services (e.g. nutrient cycling and retention, carbon storage, pest and disease suppression). The session aims to bring together researchers investigating the role of diversifying farming practices on soil biology and soil processes, and how they contribute to multifunctional agricultural systems.