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After historic find, University of Illinois soil scientists want to dig up more on state's land

After stumbling upon thousands of Mason jars filled with soil in a University of Illinois barn, some of them over 100 years old, Andrew Margenot knew he had found something special.

As a soil scientist, Margenot is charged with understanding soil fertility, how it has changed over time and how it can be managed to deliver better profitability to farmers. A few years ago, his boss told him an old barn on the university's farming campus was slated to be torn down.

“I checked it out, and lo and behold, we had soil jars going back as far back as 1862,” he said. “Three years and a lot of grants later, we're working to curate, to clean up and digitize them. We made a lot of progress on understanding how old the soils are and where they were taken.”

In an attempt to gain unique insight into how Illinois soils have changed over the course of 120 years, Margenot and his team are now trying to resample soils at 450 locations throughout the state and compare them to the samples gathered by their predecessors.

Worldwide, most soil experiments of this nature don't go back more than 30 years, Margenot said.

“This is as good as it gets, I would argue, in the world,” he said. “Globally, the research that we could do with this is going to be really important for soil science. We can look at sustainability in ways that we haven't been able to.”

Margenot added that immediate benefits to Illinois farmers will include updating the state Agronomy Handbook, looking at carbon market opportunities and analyzing erosional losses.

“Everything that has to do with agriculture and also engineering on soils could be answered in a very unique way,” he said.

Once complete, the project will culminate in a publicly available database. The researchers went through nearly 7,000 Mason jars one by one, choosing about 3,000 of the best documented original soil samples to analyze and include online.

“These historic samples were paid for by taxpayers in 1899 through present day, so we need to put that back out there,” Margenot said. “The goal in the next few years is not just a library of resampled soils but also a public-facing database for researchers, or just for landowners or other stakeholders, to be able to access.”

The jars were originally collected as part of the state soil survey, a process in which scientists dig holes three to four feet deep, allowing them to profile the different layers. By doing this, researchers can understand how soil types differ across the landscape and create detailed maps with the information.

“Those maps have power obviously for agriculture but also things like construction. Even today, what kind of a septic system you have is based on the soil maps,” Margenot said. “This is a publicly funded effort that has yielded dividends for engineering and for agriculture.”

Dirt, it turns out, can tell us a lot about the place we call home — and how we've been treating it.

Changes that Margenot's team hopes to measure, such as in fertility, biodiversity and organic carbon, will help researchers answer larger questions about erosion, sustainable farming and even climate change.

That's because soils store carbon, but through deforestation and agricultural tillage, a lot of the CO2 previously locked up in the earth has been transferred into the atmosphere. As scientists continue searching for ways to offset greenhouse gas emissions, there's been increasing attention in soils as a means to sequester carbon.

“Can we pull it back out of the atmosphere and store it as it once was? That can help offset some of the anthropogenic emissions by combusting fossil fuels.” he said. “The thing is, we don't really know how much carbon soils used to store; we just have estimates and models. This is a chance to actually verify for sure how much we had.”

The research team hopes to complete the project, funded by the Illinois Nutrient Research and Education Council as well as the Illinois Farm Bureau, over the next one to two years.

Because the majority of resam­pling locations are now on private land, where the soil researchers need permission to gather soil, the team has hit a roadblock in identifying and contacting landowners.

“We have a really unique chance in Illinois that frankly no other part of the world will ever have,” Margenot said. “We're so lucky, but we need people's help to make this happen.”

More information, including a map of the sampling sites and contact information for the research team, can be found at tinyurl.com/ILsoil.

• Jenny Whidden is a Report For America corps member covering climate change and the environment for the Daily Herald. To help support her work with a tax-deductible donation, see dailyherald.com/rfa.

Researchers discovered around 7,000 Mason jars full of soil samples, the oldest dating back to 1862, in an old barn on University of Illinois land. COURTESY OF MICHAEL DOUGLASS AND ANDREW MARGENOT
The soil samples stored in a University of Illinois barn were taken over the years as part of the state soil survey, a process in which scientists dig holes three to four feet in depth, allowing them to profile the different layers. COURTESY OF MICHAEL DOUGLASS AND ANDREW MARGENOT
Samples allow researchers to better understand how soil types differ across the Illinois landscape and create detailed maps with the information. The maps are used in agriculture, engineering, construction, and other fields. COURTESY OF MICHAEL DOUGLASS AND ANDREW MARGENOT
Soil scientists at the University of Illinois hope to use old soil samples to measure changes over time in qualities like fertility, biodiversity and organic carbon. The data will help researchers answer larger questions about erosion, sustainable farming, and even climate change. COURTESY OF MICHAEL DOUGLASS AND ANDREW MARGENOT
The soil project includes samples like the one noted by this label from 1913. It will look at samples from 450 different locations across the state, will allow researchers to update the Illinois Agronomy Handbook, look at carbon market opportunities, analyze erosional losses and more. COURTESY OF MICHAEL DOUGLASS AND ANDREW MARGENOT
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