Frontiers in Soil Science | New and Recent Articles

In arid regions, the conversion of deserts into agricultural land through irrigation is critical for food security but may intensify soil salinization processes. In this context, integrated and spatial soil quality assessment is essential for guiding sustainable management strategies. In this study, we developed a spatially explicit weighted Soil Quality Index (SQIw) and evaluated the effects of …

IntroductionSoil elemental stoichiometry is the bedrock of carbon dynamics, and its understanding is essential in promoting soil carbon sinking capacity.MethodsThis study examined the spatiotemporal variation of soil carbon-to-nitrogen and carbon-to- hydrogen ratios in agricultural farmlands at Prairie View A&M University. The soil C:N, C (%), and C:H were measured and quantified in three dif…

Bio-Based Fertilisers (BBFs) derived from nutrient recovery are increasingly promoted as sustainable alternatives to synthetic inputs. However, their effects on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions remain poorly understood, especially how carbon quality interacts with phosphorus (P) availability and soil moisture to influence CO2, N2O, and CH4 fluxes. A 28-day incubation experiment was conducted using …

Reliable soil information is essential for monitoring soil health and supporting sustainable land management. However, soil datasets are often fragmented across national databases that differ in structure, classification systems, and data collection methodologies, limiting their interoperability and large-scale use for environmental assessment and policy support. This study presents the developme…

IntroductionThe ongoing conflict in Ukraine has led to severe disruptions in agricultural production, raising concerns about soil fertility, land-use changes, and global food security. This study aims to conduct a high-resolution and reproducible spatial analysis of how the conflict in Ukraine has affected human–soil interactions within agricultural areas.MethodsThis study utilizes open-access da…

IntroductionPhosphorus (P) is a critical nutrient influencing soil fertility, yet its role in shaping bacterial community structure remains underexplored, particularly in native grasslands versus agricultural systems. This study aimed to evaluate how bioavailable P and other edaphic factors influence soil bacterial communities across contrasting land-use types.MethodsSoil bacterial communities we…

Soils in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are central to both agricultural productivity and human nutrition, yet increasing contamination from mining activities, wastewater irrigation, and agrochemical inputs has intensified the accumulation of toxic trace elements in food crops. This review synthesizes current evidence on the soil–plant–human transfer of toxic elements alongside essential nutrients, hig…

This study is the first to investigate the relationship between potentially toxic elements (PTEs) and soil fauna abundance across a chronosequence of minesoils in Moatize coal mine, Mozambique. Soil samples were collected (0.00−0.10 m layer) across a chronosequence of minesoils afforested for 0.5, 1.4, 5.3, and 10.6 years. One adjacent unmined soil was sampled as reference. The samples were analy…

Urban agriculture soils are commonly amended with compost to improve fertility, yet the functional responses of these systems to biochar additions across application rates remain poorly understood. We conducted a field experiment at Three Sisters Gardens (West Sacramento, CA, USA) to evaluate how biochar applied at 0, 10, 20, and 30 t ha−1 influenced soil physical, chemical, and biological indica…

Soil quality is a key determinant of plant growth and ecosystem functioning, yet conventional assessments often overlook it from the plant’s perspective. Here, we propose the Ease of Root Water Uptake Index (ERWUI), a dynamic index that quantifies the energy required by plants to extract water from the soil, based on soil water retention characteristics, rooting depth, and temporal changes. The i…

Limited availability of high-quality organic resources, inconsistent nutrient content, and unestablished nutrient-release patterns hinder the effective utilization of organic materials for soil fertility management. To address this, the present study characterizes the total nutrient content of fourteen organic materials and analysed their NPK fertilizer value following standards established by th…

Soil acidity is a major constraint to agricultural productivity across sub-Saharan Africa, where highly weathered soils exhibit strong spatial heterogeneity in chemical reactivity. While soil pH identifies acidity status, it does not indicate how a soil will respond to corrective liming how strongly it resists pH change or how much amendment it ultimately requires. Soil buffering capacity fills t…

Water scarcity is a major challenge for agriculture in arid and semi-arid regions. This study evaluates the long-term effects of deficit irrigation (DI) and land management practices, including no-tillage (NT), crop genetics, crop types, and cover cropping (CC), on soil health and water infiltration. Field experiments were conducted from 2019 to 2024 at three sites in Utah, USA, to study the effe…

This study developed a computer vision application for soil-phase segmentation and precise characterization of soil porosity, as well as for estimating soil color and fractal properties from digital images collected in undisturbed in situ soils. The multi-sensor Digital Soil Core (DSC) was used to collect microscopic soil images from four cultivated locations in California’s Central Valley, encom…

IntroductionEffective cation exchange capacity (ECEC) is a key indicator of soil fertility and sustainable soil management assessment in coffee-growing systems.MethodsThis study aimed to identify the principal edaphic and altitudinal factors explaining ECEC variability in 69 soil samples collected from coffee farms in northeastern Peru.ResultsECEC results exhibited substantial variation, ranging …

Fertilizer applications are popular for enhancing crop productivity, yet they pose significant environmental risks, particularly nutrient runoff and water contamination. However, the relevant field data for Kentucky is limited. This 2024-2025 study at Kentucky State University’s Harold R. Benson Research Demonstration Farm assessed short-term impacts of three treatments: dairy manure, composted d…

Organic materials are widely used to enhance soil organic carbon (SOC) storage, but their comparative effects and underlying mechanisms in saline-alkali soils remain unclear. A field experiment was conducted in the Yellow River Delta to evaluate the effects of different organic materials on SOC sequestration and soil structure in saline-alkali paddy soil. Four treatments were included: mineral fe…