The Institute of Soil Genomics for Healthy Community Forestry

When you truly love nature, you will do everything in your power to protect it. Protecting #nature is ultimately protecting ourselves. Salute to the person in this video. Let us all strive to protect every aspect of our natural world: the #air, water, soil, trees, glaciers, #forest and oceans. Halting the rise in global temperatures and mitigating climate change must be our highest priority in these critical times. #EnergySwaraj

Happy Arbor Day we all have wings on this special day.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has declared that removing carbon from the atmosphere is now essential to fighting climate change and limiting the rise in global temperature. To support these efforts, Salk Institute scientists are harnessing plants' natural ability to draw carbon dioxide out of the air by optimizing their root systems to store more carbon for a longer period of time.To design these climate-saving plants, scientists in Salk's Harnessing Plants Initiative are using a sophisticated new research tool called SLEAP—an easy-to-use artificial intelligence (AI) software that tracks multiple features of root growth. Created by Salk Fellow Talmo Pereira, SLEAP was initially designed to track animal movement in the lab. Now, Pereira has teamed up with plant scientist and Salk colleague Professor Wolfgang Busch to apply SLEAP to plants. In a study published in Plant Phenomics, Busch and Pereira debut a new protocol for using SLEAP to analyze plant root phenotypes—how deep and wide they grow, how massive their root systems become, and other physical qualities that—prior to SLEAP—were tedious to measure. The application of SLEAP to plants has already enabled researchers to establish the most extensive catalog of plant root system phenotypes to date. Together with massive genome sequencing efforts for elucidating the genotype data in large numbers of crop varieties, these phenotypic data, such as a plant's root system growing especially deep in soil, can be extrapolated to understand the genes responsible for creating that especially deep root system. This step—connecting phenotype and genotype—is crucial in Salk's mission to create plants that hold on to more carbon and for longer, as those plants will need root systems designed to be deeper and more robust. Implementing this accurate and efficient software will allow the Harnessing Plants Initiative to connect desirable phenotypes to targetable genes with groundbreaking ease and speed. Our organization is planning ahead by increasing the number of urban soil samples for genomics reports, to contribute to a better environment.

The ingredients for a tastier, stronger tea could be in the soil From the strength of black and Earl Grey teas to the soothing and light flavors of herbal and green teas, the little plants brewed in this millennia-old beverage have endless variety. However, the complexity and quality of their flavor could depend on something even smaller than the leaves themselves. A study published February 15 in the journal Current Biology found that the microbes at the tea’s roots may make high-quality tea even better.  Some previous studies noted that the soil microbes living at the roots of plants affect the way that nutrients are absorbed and used by the plant to grow and flourish. However, improving the quality of tea leaves in the lab by genetically altering the plants is challenging and difficult to achieve in the lab. According to the team from this study, there is a vested interest in finding other ways to modify and enhance tea, potentially with microbial agents. "Our previous discussions have emphasized that regardless of whether you're growing tea or trees, the key lies in the soil. Perhaps we should delve deeper into the genomics of soil and dedicate more time and effort towards restoring our planet. Happy Earth Day!".

Increasing salt production and use is shifting the natural balances of salt ions across Earth systems, causing interrelated effects across biophysical systems collectively known as freshwater salinization syndrome The natural salt cycle and synthesize increasing global trends of salt production and riverine salt concentrations and fluxes. The natural salt cycle is primarily driven by relatively slow geologic and hydrologic processes that bring different salts to the surface of the Earth. Anthropogenic activities have accelerated the processes, timescales and magnitudes of salt fluxes and altered their directionality, creating an anthropogenic salt cycle. Global salt production has increased rapidly over the past century for different salts, with approximately 300 Mt of NaCl produced per year. Street trees are often affected by the road salt that is pushed closer to them. This increases the stress factor in the soil, which can set off an imbalance in the biome around the trees. There have been many discussions about this issue, and efforts are being made to change the course of action. A salt budget for the USA suggests that salt fluxes in rivers can be within similar orders of magnitude as anthropogenic salt fluxes, and there can be substantial accumulation of salt in watersheds. Excess salt propagates along the anthropogenic salt cycle, causing freshwater salinization syndrome to extend beyond freshwater supplies and affect food and energy production, air quality, human health and infrastructure. There is a need to identify environmental limits and thresholds for salt ions and reduce salinization before planetary boundaries are exceeded, causing serious or irreversible damage across Earth systems. To learn about your city's soil information and assess the soil's genomics health, start a conversation with our team.. Diver deeper into this topic in multiple ways with the following TreeDiaper ( Dr. Wei Zhang) educational online and to the following individuals who suported this article. Sujay S. Kaushal, Gene E. Likens, Paul M. Mayer, Ruth R. Shatkay, Sydney A. Shelton, Stanley B. Grant, Ryan M. Utz, Alexis M. Yaculak, Carly M. Maas, Jenna E. Reimer, Shantanu V. Bhide, Joseph T. Malin & Megan A. Rippy Kaushal, S.S., Likens, G.E., Mayer, P.M. et al. The anthropogenic salt cycle. Nat Rev Earth Environ 4, 770–784 (2023). https://lnkd.in/gujhwS39

Azotobacter vinelandi is a Gram-negative diazotroph, which means it can fix nitrogen while growing aerobically. A. vinelandi is a free-living nitrogen fixer that produces many phytohormones and vitamins in soils. It also produces fluorescent pyoverdine pigments. The nitrogenase holoenzyme of A. vinelandi has been characterized by X-ray crystallography in both ADP tetrafluoroaluminate-bound and Mg ATP-bound states. The enzyme possesses molybdenum iron-sulfido cluster cofactors (FeMoco) as active sites, each bearing two pseudocubic iron-sulfido structures. A. vinelandi is a genetically tractable system that is used to study nitrogen fixation. Genetically engineered strains can produce significantly higher amounts of ammonia. Appropriate ammonia emissions can provide crops with the ammonia they need without excess amounts that can pollute lakes and oceans. A. vinelandi also produces significant amounts of alginate. In the nitrogen cycle, A. vinelandi plays a fundamental role in nitrogen fixation, a pivotal step in converting atmospheric nitrogen into forms usable by plants and, subsequently, other organisms. Unlike some other nitrogen-fixing bacteria that form symbiotic relationships with plants, A. vinelandi operates independently, contributing to the nitrogen cycle in non-symbiotic environments. In agriculture, the role of A. vinelandi in nitrogen fixation is particularly significant. By converting atmospheric nitrogen into a form usable by plants, this bacterium contributes to soil fertility. Arborist can leverage the natural nitrogen-fixing abilities of A. vinelandi to reduce the reliance on synthetic fertilizers, promoting sustainable and eco-friendly agricultural practices. Next-generation companies are using this formation in products that cities and urban communities can obtain, helping generate a healthier soil complex. To learn more about this or obtain the products, contact solublesciences.com.