Download Department of Soil Quality SOQ Newsletter 7, May 2015

Department of Soil Quality
SOQ Newsletter 7, May 2015
Welcome the 7th edition of the SOQ newsletter. The next release is scheduled for July, so please
send in contributions before July 1, to Marnella van der Tol
Follow us on Twitter :
@SOQ_WUR
Introducing MSc students
Hello!! My name is Marta Crispo and I come from Italy. I am a
Master student and my specialization is Soil Chemistry
and Chemical Soil Quality. I've just started with my research
thesis. It is about the oxidation of silver nano particles (AgNP) in
soil solution. My supervisors are Tjisse, Bastiaan and Gerwin. Hope
to see you around the department!
Marta!
Introducing Somayeh Alvani …..
Hi everybody. I am Somayeh Alvani, PhD student from
Iran. The subject of my thesis is "Morphological and
molecular identification of plant parasitic nematodes
associated with three important yield, Crocus sativus,
Berberis vulgaris and Ziziphus vulgaris in Iran". Here in
Wageningen University I am a visiting PhD student and I
am a member of a research project to identify plant
parasitic nematodes in a field experiment.
….. and Dominika Piwcewicz
Hello everybody!
I was asked to introduce myself with a brief e-mail. My name is
Dominika Piwcewicz, I came from Poland and I am PhD student. I
came to Wageningen for a six month internship with Gerlinde De
Deyn supervising me. My initial goals are to improve my skills/ gain
new ones and help in experimental work and analysis, my genuine
goals are to enjoy my time in the lovely Wageningen and have as
much fun doing the work as possible.
My professional interests concern the problems of nutrient and
energy flow in ecosystems. Although initially I was trained in animal
physiology and have some background in molecular techniques I do
mostly stoichiometric analyses of plant and animal material.
Currently I use soil invertebrates to solve the paradoxes of
stoichiometric imbalances existing in the detritus-detritivore trophic links. There is a serious
mismatch between the composition of detritivores and decaying litter on which they feed. Me
and my team want to elucidate what is going on in natural terrestrial ecosystems and inside of
our model organism(s). We simply do not know how is it possible that poorly digestible litter
(consisting virtually of carbohydrates) is sufficient to build the bodies of these small
invertebrates while lacking essential microelements. Therefore in my work at Krakow’s
Jagiellonian University I focused on the hypothesis in which fungi and bacteria play pivotal role
in balancing the discrepancy of detritus/detrivore trophic link. We think that detrivores prey
not only on litter but also on microbes and their metabolites. Here my long time, albeit rusty,
expertise in molecular biology could pop in and I wish to improve in this field a lot. I wish I
could work out a nice project focusing on identification of various microbes and an in-depth
study of their role as key players coordinating and maintaining the flow of energy and
nutrients in terrestrial ecosystems.
Biodiversa eco-serve kick-off meeting at Atlas
‘How to make agriculture less damaging to the environment’
With a kick-off workshop at Wageningen, the Eco-serve project (Sustainable provisioning of
multiple ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes) was launched on 15 -16 January. This
project, carried out in 6 European countries is funded under the joint EU Biodiversa - FACCE
JPI call ‘Promoting synergies and reducing trade-offs between food supply, biodiversity and
ecosystem services’. The general objective of the research is to evaluate alternatives to
current agricultural
systems that confer
adaptation to the agroecological conditions that
are changing in agricultural
landscapes due to
increased rainfall variability
under climate change.
Click here for more
information.
News from WEPAL / Quasimeme,
By Winnie van Vark
Last year I announced that I succeeded Bram Eijgenraam as manager of WEPAL. From that
time Bram was only responsible for the software and the scientific content of the PT schemes
of WEPAL.
In the meantime a lot has changed. In 2014 we started to merge the software of WEPAL and
Quasimeme in cooperation with Jan Groenwold (Alterra ERA-team). By using the same
software it is easier to replace each other, in order to ensure continuity. But, the processes of
WEPAL and Quasimeme differ a lot, so merging is much more complicated than assumed.
Bram retired on January 15, so Jan Groenwold is now
responsible for the software. Again to ensure continuity
Rob Smidt is appointed as deputy for Jan. Bram is still
advisor of WEPAL.
Jan Groenwold Rob Smidt
Despite his retirement Arie Brader is still working as technician for WEPAL. At this moment he
is training Fred Bransen who will probably succeed Arie at June 1 (picture is not available at
this moment).
As from May 1st, Steven Tito has resigned, as he found a new job as QA officer at the animal
health service in Deventer. He was looking for a new challenge and will set up a GLP quality
system. At this moment WEPAL has a vacancy for QA officer.
Other activities of WEPAL:
• The IAEA funded 33 laboratories in developing countries to participate in IPE (plant)
and ISE (soil) for half a year.
• There is a concept ISO standard for the determination of the bio-availability of trace
metals in soils. ISO contracted WEPAL to organize a PT test to validate and finalize the
standard. In the first ISE round of 2015 18 laboratories subscribed to join the
validation. Next month we will analyze the results and report to ISO.
• WEPAL participated in “de burenweek” in the context of “The year of the soil”, together
with ISRIC and the laboratories of CBLB and NCL.
From 2006 WEPAL is situated in one of the facilities of the PRI
(plant research international) at Bornsesteeg 10, Bennekom, 2
kilometers from their roots: the Soil Chemistry and Chemical Soil
Quality group. Quasimeme (Quality Assurance of Information for
Marine Environmental Monitoring) part of the ERA team, joined
WEPAL in 2011 in order ensure
continuity and to obtain
accreditation by the RvA
(Dutch council of accreditation). Steven Crum is
coordinator of Quasimeme and Ann Marie Ryan staffs the
project office.
Steven Crum
Ann Marie Ryan
For our young colleagues: You are cordially invited to visit us!
Write workshop Soil Science
Thom and Oene went to Ghana to provide a
one week write workshop, from February 23
until February 28,for students in the
framework of the AGRA Soil Health progamme
at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and
Technology (KNUST). From the interaction with
the students they would say that the workshop
was successful, a nice experience to do and
they enjoyed the atmosphere during that
week. Logistics were all nicely organised by
professor Robert Abaidoo of KNUST.
The Spectacular Soils of The
Philippines
By Angie Straathof
After thesis submission, I travelled to The
Philippines for the month of March. Even
though I was on holiday, I couldn’t help but
enjoy the special feats of soil engineering that
this beautiful country had to offer. Hiking
through the rice terraces of the Cordillera
Mountains was breath-taking. These terraces
make it possible to farm the mountainsides
and have been maintained for over 2000
years. They are now a UNESCO World Heritage
Site and incredibly well-preserved. The soil is a
very soft silty-loam and the irrigation is completely natural (no pumps) although the village of
Batad (pictured) did get electricity within the past year.
The natural soil landscape is also quite impressive. High rates of iron oxidation here result in a
deeply coloured red soil that, while quite beautiful to look at, is not particularly fertile. One
especially unusual soil I encountered was the Blue Soil of Sagada. I suspect that its unique
colour is the result of limestone high in oxidized copper content. If anyone from the lab wants
to help me confirm this hypothesis, of course I brought a grab-sample of this soil back with
me!
A daughter for Diederik and Marloes
Mother and Ona are doing fine. Please call first when you plan a visit.
Fundraising ‘Spieren voor Spieren’
By Natalie Oram who baked cookies to sell
What a beautiful day for a race! The sun was shining and with only a slight breeze we took to
the streets of Hilversum! A great and busy race, but even better was the beer afterwards of
course :)
Thank you for supporting the race through the cookie fundraiser! It was so much fun to make
all of the cookies, and the bake sale contributed 438 euros to the total of over 22,000 euros
for Spieren voor Spieren! That's pretty great! As for my time, it turns out I need to 'quality
control' the cookie baking a bit less and run a bit more ;-) it was not so fast, but it was a great
run! And I enjoyed more or less all of the 49 minutes and 18 seconds of the 10 km :-)
Thanks again for your support! Keep an eye out next April, I think the Spieren voor Spieren
cookie bake sale could become a tradition :-)
In this picture: Mart, the blond, Natalie, in orange and Jan Willem, in the middle.
Walter Andriuzzi’s presentation at the Dies Natalis
Walter gave a "pitch" presentation at the Dies Natalis symposium as one of the
young talented scientists of Wageningen University. It was a nice opportunity to show
people outside our department how fascinating soil biology can be, in fact several
people approached him afterwards to tell him they didn't think soil (and earthworms
in particular) could be so interesting.
A video which includes his presentation is available
at http://wurtv.wur.nl/p2gplayer/Player.aspx?id=cidAjN (the pitch starts at about
00:17:40 and ends at 00.24.56) or click here for the complete transcript.
Upcoming oral defence ceremonies:
Yunyu Pan on May 12, 16.00 hours on: ‘Speciation of trace metals and their uptake by rice in
paddy soils’.
Maaike van Agtmaal on June 15, 16.00 hours on: ‘Predicting disease suppression of
agricultural soils’.
Roeland Cortois on June 16, 16.00 hours on: ’Plant-soil feedback/microbial ecology’.
Angela Straathof on June 17, 11.00 hours on: ‘The role of dissolved organic matter in
disease suppression of agricultural soils’.
3 Terra Preta defences are scheduled on July 1:
Tatiana Rittl at 11.00 hours on: ‘Challenging claims on the climate change potential of
biochar’.
Clara Pena Venegas at 13.30 hours on: ‘People, soil and manioc interactions in the upper
Amazon region’.
Estela Quintero Vallejo at 16.00 hours on: ‘Legacies of Amazonian Dark Earths on forest
composition and dynamics’.
Walter Andriuzzi on August 31, 16.00 hours on: ‘Species-specific earthworm functions in the
soil-plant system’.
Wei Qin on October 6, 16.00 hours on: ‘Exploring options for improving water and nitrogen
use efficiency in crop production systems’.
All presentations will be at the Aula of Wageningen University, Generaal Foulkesweg 1, building
362. Graduation ceremonies can be followed real-time on the internet, click here.
Interesting links
-
-
SOQ website
Chemical Biological Laboratory
Ecofinders
Terra Preta
Science cafe
Rhizo4.org
Wageningen Soil Conference 2015
colloquia Environmental Sciences
http://www.soilecology.eu/
Papers
The paper of Wenfeng Cong et al. Intercropping
enhances soil carbon and nitrogen, is now featured on
the cover of Global Change Biology. This is Wenfeng’s
last paper (of his PhD thesis).