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ARS Home » Plains Area » Las Cruces, New Mexico » Range Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #309331
Title: Assessing and managing soil quality for urban agriculture in a degraded vacant lot soil

Author
item Beniston, Joshua
item LAI, RATTAN - The Ohio State University
item MERCER, KRISTIN - The Ohio State University

Submitted to: Land Degradation and Development
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/2/2014
Publication Date: 11/7/2014
Citation: Beniston, J.W., Lai, R., Mercer, K.L. 2014. Assessing and managing soil quality for urban agriculture in a degraded vacant lot soil. Land Degradation and Development. 27(4):996-1006. https://doi.org/10.1002/ldr.2342.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ldr.2342

Interpretive Summary: Vacant properties and vacant land are an important issue in many cities. Recently, there has been widespread interest in re-purposing vacant urban land as functional green-space. Soil degradation is often a major management issue in vacant urban land, particularly after building demolitions. We found that soils were heavily compacted after building demolitions and evaluated the use of low cost management practices such as yard waste compost application and cover cropping to improve these soils. After two years, compost application improved plant growth and many soil properties in the soil surface. This study demonstrated that a low cost urban waste product, yard waste compost, can be used successfully to improve physically degraded urban soils for garden and green-space projects.

Technical Abstract: Following the decline of industrial manufacturing, many U.S. cities have experienced severe population reductions that have resulted in large areas of vacant land. Urban agriculture has emerged as a desirable land use for these spaces, but degraded soils are common. Therefore, we measured soil and plant responses to amendments and management in urban lots where vacant houses had recently been demolished in Youngstown, OH U.S.A. Soil degradation was observed following demolition activities in the form of compaction (bulk density of 1.5-1.8 Mg m-3) and low soil microbial biomass C (21 mg C kg-1 soil). Our split plot experiment measured the effects of organic matter (OM) amendments produced from yard wastes and the use of raised beds on soil properties and vegetable crop yields. Two years after their application, OM amendments resulted in significant improvement to a number of soil physical, chemical and biological properties. Vegetable crop yields were improved by OM amendments in 2011 and by both OM amendments and the use of raised beds in 2012. A soil quality index, developed using factor analysis and the soil management assessment framework (SMAF), produced values ranging from 0.60-0.85, which are comparable to those reported for rural agricultural soils. All results indicate that urban agriculture can be productive in vacant urban land and that amendments produced from urban yard wastes can improve soil quality at previously degraded sites and increase crop yields for urban agriculture.