Approved Site Use Requests (SURFs) — Main Cropping System Experiment (MCSE)

Data in the KBS LTER core database may not be published without written permission of the lead investigator or project director Full terms of use

Site Use Request Forms are filled out by investigators wishing to conduct sampling on LTER properties. When approved, the request is listed on the web.

This datatable is part of the Agronomic Practices of the Main Cropping System Experiment dataset.

This dataset includes information on the agronomic practices of the Main Cropping System Experiment (MCSE), including the LTER Main Site treatments (T1-T8) and the Mid-successional (TSF) and Forested (TCF, TDF) sites.

Most long-term hypotheses of the KBS LTER are tested within the context of the MCSE. The LTER Main Site contains 7 different cropping systems (T1-T7) established in 1988 on a 48-ha area divided into 6 replicate blocks (R1-R6) of seven 1-ha plots. Each system is replicated in each block. The eighth system (T8) is a mown grassland on never-tilled soil, located 200 m off-site and replicated in four 0.06 ha plots.

Current MCSE treatments at the LTER Main Site include:


  • Conventional (T1): standard chemical input corn/soybean/wheat rotation conventionally tilled (corn/soybean prior to 1992)
  • No-till (T2): standard chemical input corn/soybean/wheat rotation no-tilled (corn/soybean prior to 1992)
  • Reduced Input (T3): low chemical input corn/soybean/wheat rotation conventionally tilled (ridge till prior to 1994), with a center prairie strip planted in each replicate in 2019
  • Biologically Based (T4): zero chemical input corn/soybean wheat rotation conventionally tilled (ridge till prior to 1994), with a center prairie strip planted in each replicate in 2019
  • Poplar (T5): Populus clones on short-rotation (6-7 year) harvest cycle
  • Switchgrass (T6): planted in 2019 and converted in 2018 from continuous alfalfa, replanted every 6-7 years)
  • Early Successional (T7): early successional community on historically tilled soil abandoned in 1989 and burned annually since 1997
  • Mown Grassland (Never Tilled; T8); successional community on never-tilled soil, mown annually since 1960

In 1993 three additional successional sites were added to the MCSE to provide reference communities for population and process comparisons. All are within 3 km of and share the same soil series as the LTER Main Site. These include:


  • Mid-successional (TSF): three old-field sites on historically tilled cropland abandoned in the 1950s and 1960s
  • Coniferous Forest (TCF): three conifer long-rotation plantations established in 1965
  • Deciduous Forest (TDF): three deciduous forest stands, two old-growth and one logged once ca. 1960

For each treatment (and for some, microplots nested within treatment plots) the following variates are routinely measured (described in greater detail in associated datasets):


  • plant characteristics including species distributions and abundances, aboveground net primary production by function;
  • soil chemical and physical characteristics, including soil moisture, pH, inorganic N pools, total C and N, and bulk density;
  • soil biological characteristics including greenhouse gas fluxes, soil leachate, N mineralization potential (buried bags); and
  • insect dynamics including distributions and abundances of major insect pests and predators.

Note

Experiment: Main Cropping System Experiment (MCSE)
Data available from: April 2002 to January 2023
Dataset: KBS004
Datatable ID: View_SiteUseRequests.140
Repository link: http://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/e5642426f9200404b6ba3af45ad9c423
Related Tables:
Personnel:
Last Updated 2023-10-24
Variate Description Units
principal investigator name of investigator posting the request
project title of project served by the proposed sampling effort
date date the request was submitted or the date of the first proposed sampling

Data Excerpt

principal_investigator project date
Maxwell oerther the role of manganese and iron in carbon sequestration 2024-05-14
Anita Simic Milas Mapping Chlorophyll and Nitrogen Using Hyperspectral and Multispectral Satellite Data 2024-05-09
Jen Lau Feedbacks between social and ecological adaptation--how irrigation affects plant-microbe interactions under drought. 2024-05-06
Dileepa Jayawardena Corn stover removal effects on grain and stover yields, grain and stover quality, and soil nutrients in a continuous corn system. 2024-05-02
Binod Basyal Drought legacy effects on switchgrass growth, physiology, rhizobiome and biomass fermentability 2024-05-01
Ashim Datta Long-term changes in the climate benefits of fertilized switchgrass 2024-04-29
Siddhesh Mane Switchgrass Nitrogen Gradient on the BCSE 2024-04-29
Christine A Bahlai Insect Populations via Sticky Traps 2024-04-29
Kadeem Gilbert Exploring phylloplane pH 2024-04-26
Ashley Darst Investigating the role of sodium-enriched nectar in pollinator preference and pollination rate 2024-04-23
Mark Hammond Researching restored prairies' plant diversity and community ecology by manipulation of the number of species and their seed source location (local, midwest, southern) within the landscape of KBS. 2024-04-23
Mark Hammond WarmX: Investigating the response of early successional grassland plant and soil communities to warming. 2024-04-23
Mark Hammond REX T7: How do abiotic factors (Warming and Drought) and biotic (suppressed insect herbivory) factors influence plant and soil communities in an early successional community (T7)? 2024-04-23
Geoffrey M. Henebry Evaluating the Sensitivity of Fine Spatial Resolution X-Band SAR Time Series to the Phenology of Multiple Crops using Capella Space Products 2024-04-23
Mark Hammond Continued investigations of response of plant communities to long-term nitrogen addition and tillage. Shift to population and eco/evo level questions? 2024-04-19
Allison Zahorec Belowground biodiversity in bioenergy cropping systems unearthed: Characterizing microarthropod communities with DNA metabarcoding 2024-04-17
Allison Zahorec Effects of micronutrient additions to soil on N-fixer communities and N-fixation rates 2024-04-11
Annabelle McCarthy Investigating potential ecological traps: small prairie patches in cropland 2024-04-10
Rachel Drobnak Prairie strips soil sampling 2024-04-08
Jinho Lee Changing impacts of reconstructed prairie vegetation on pore characteristics 2024-04-05
Meredith Mann Nitrogen cycling and belowground food web dynamics in the KBS LTER Resource Gradient 2024-04-04
Christine Charles Pest Trapping and Wheat Scouting 2024-04-02
Meredith Mann Sprunger Lab Annual Soil Health and Nematode community assessment across the LTER MCSE 2024-03-29
Blair Van Agen Cover Crops Effect on Soil and Water Dynamics 2024-03-27
Patrick Copeland Using data-driven knowledge for profitable soybean management systems 2024-03-21
Jamie Smith Do prairie strip presence and location within a crop field affect insect abundance and diversity? 2024-03-20
Jamie Smith Do prairie strip presence and location within a crop field affect bird abundance and diversity? 2024-03-20
Meredith Mann MSU-Syngenta Soil Health Partnership Pilot Project "Actionable Soil Health" 2024-03-15
DeShae Dillard Establishing Pest and Beneficial Arthropod Monitoring in the LTAR ACSE 2024-03-13
DeShae Dillard Assessing the Decomposition Potential of Diptera within Annual Row Crops and Restored Native Grasslands 2024-03-13
DeShae Dillard Functional Diversity and Community Composition of Diptera in Agroecosystems 2024-03-13
Jamie Smith Ecosystem services of terrestrial arthropods in prairie strips 2024-03-05
Stephanie Clark Individual and additive effects of global change factors on Pieris rapae larvae 2024-03-05
Jamie Smith Butterfly surveys in the LTER 2024-03-05
Poulamee Chakraborty Molecular Observation Network (summer soil sampling) 2024-02-27
Poulamee Chakraborty Effect of pore-structure on Microbial O2 consumption: assessed using Stable Isotope Probing 2024-02-20
Deying Wang “NitroNexus- An international partnership to explore agronomic soil contributions to nitrogenous atmospheric pollutants.” 2024-02-12
Alison Cupples The Potential of Methanotrophs and Propanotrophs from Agricultural Soils to Degrade Groundwater Contaminants 2024-02-01
Brandon Kristy Determining the nitrogen fixation potential of hyphal-associated diazotrophs across a nitrogen fertility gradient 2024-01-23
Ningzhi Luo-Li Soil Respiration in Established Biofuel Cropping Systems 2024-01-22
Jim Moran Spatially resolved rhizosphere function: Elucidating key controls on nutrient interactions 2023-12-04
Tvisha Martin Soil food webs through time: How does nematode community composition shift over a 30-year period under varying agroecosystems? 2023-10-27
Glade Bogar Drydown 2 2023-10-16
Holly Vander Stel Air and soil Microbiome Survey of KBS LTER 2023-10-10
Allison Zahorec Elucidating C & N flows through microarthropod biomass pools 2023-09-28
Dileepa Jayawardena GLBRC-BCSE_G1 2023-09-27
Claire Volk Cover Cropping Management Effects on Phosphorus Pools in Long Term Cropping Systems 2023-09-27
Jennifer Blesh Estimating legume N2 fixation and partial N balance in the Croplands Common Experiment 2023-09-13
Maoz Dor Shifting precipitation patterns in the U.S. Midwest and their influence on soil health 2023-08-17
Brendan O'Neill Assessing Nitrification Potential and Carbon Use Efficiency on LTAR Soils Varying in Yield Stability 2023-08-11
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