The Influence Of Livestock Fields On Soil Quality Indicators

Understanding soil quality indicators under livestock production is important to improve the efficiency of land management systems. Therefore, the objective of this experiment was to evaluate the changes in soil quality indicators as affected by the different types of livestock production. For this experiment, 24 disturbed and 24 undisturbed soil samples were taken from a cattle field and horse field located in Murray, Kentucky, and a sheep field and the two CRP fields located in Lewisburg, Kentucky. The soil quality indicators measured were soil organic matter (SOM), soil compaction as bulk density (BD) , pH, porosity, soil water holding capacity (SWHC), and soil water at field capacity (SWFC). Fields in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) for 20 years were used as a control in this experiment. The results show that all the livestock fields had a similar pH around 7, with the CRP fields having a lower pH at approximately 6.2. SWHC was found to be around 15% higher in the low traffic horse field compared to the high traffic field. Data shows the inverse of this relationship with the high traffic cattle field 6% higher than the low traffic field. SWFC shows the same relationship as SWHC. The average bulk density for the eight sites ranged from 0.99 g/cm3 to 1.4 g/cm3 with the low traffic horse site having the lowest and the CRP 1 site having the highest. These findings correlate with the data recorded from the total percent porosity because the CRP 1 field has the lowest total porosity at 47.1% and the low traffic horse field has the highest total porosity at 62.81%. The first CRP field also had the lowest average macroporosity and the low traffic horse site had the highest recorded at 54.92%. This makes sense because the lower the total porosity, the more compacted the soil will be and thereby having a higher BD. Data is still being processed for SOM and will be presented in person. Analyzing soil quality indicators in livestock production aids farmers in predicting the maximum sustainable population on a pasture, guiding potential livestock yield and optimal forage growth amendments. Key words: Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), Efficiency, Livestock, Soil Quality Indicator, Traffi