Browsing by Subject "Weinberg"

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The importance of soil microorganisms and cover crops for copper remediation in vineyards
(2014) Mackie, Kathleen; Kandeler, Ellen
The historical use of copper fungicides, as a plant protection agent, has moderately polluted agricultural topsoils across Europe. Organic agriculture, in particular, continues to be limited to the use of copper fungicides due to a lack of permitted alternative plant protection agents. In recent years, the effects of copper accumulation in the soil have been observed. Studies on the negative effects of copper in agricultural soils show a decrease in ecosystem services, which rely on macro- and micro-organisms. Thus, there is the question of how to remediate copper polluted crop fields. Although this topic has more recently been investigated in the laboratory, currently, there are no experiments available in the field. Viticulture is one of the largest perennial crops in Europe that utilize copper fungicides. Therefore, this dissertation was designed to investigate copper remediation strategies in vineyards, in order to best understand potential solutions for a growing problem, as well as their effect on ecosystem services. Understanding the reaction of and support by soil microorganisms will help determine which strategy has the best potential. The main project was implemented using two field experiments, each of which analyzed copper availability, microbial abundance, function and community composition to determine the overall outcome of copper remediation. The dissertation is presented in four papers. The first paper is a review on copper in vineyards, which focused specifically on cutting-edge remediation strategies currently being studied. This paper also provided information on knowledge gaps in the literature. The second paper showed the spatial distribution of copper and soil microorganisms at the plot scale, providing a better understanding of copper and microbial distribution as well as a foundation for subsequent papers. The third paper analyzed copper phytoextraction by single species and mixed species cover crop plots and the microbial community that may support it. The fourth paper was aimed at observing the ability of biochar and biochar-compost to immobilize copper and improve ecosystem services. The studies utilized classic soil biological methods (enzyme activities, microbial C and N, ergosterol) and modern molecular techniques (quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) of 16S rRNA and taxa specific bacteria genes and phospholipid fatty acid analysis (PLFA)) as well as determination of chemical soil properties and copper fractions.