Healthy Soil, Healthy Farm

Overview

Have you ever wondered how to improve the quality of your soil? My family owns and farms an orange grove, and the success of our grove depends on maintaining healthy soil. That is why I wanted to investigate how different soil amendments affect soil health. One way to measure soil health is by measuring the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) released from the soil, since soil respiration is an indicator of biological activity. I was curious whether certain soil amendments would increase or decrease soil health. I hypothesized that when compost, biochar, mulch, the cover crop Mouse-Ear Chickweed, and a compost-biochar mix were added to soil, biochar would produce the highest amount of CO2 inside the jar. In this experiment, each soil amendment was tested using a CO2 sensor to measure carbon dioxide levels in parts per million (ppm). Data was collected over a 14-day period, and averages were calculated for each treatment. The results showed that soil and mulch both averaged 15 ppm, the cover crop averaged 12 ppm, biochar averaged 5 ppm, the compost-biochar mix averaged -1 ppm, and compost averaged -2 ppm of CO2. These results show that soil and mulch had the highest average CO2 levels, while compost had the lowest average concentration. The data did not support my hypothesis because biochar did not produce the highest amount of CO2. Instead, soil and mulch showed the greatest increase in CO2 levels. Compost had the lowest average change, and biochar ranked fourth overall. Based on these results, soil and mulch appeared to promote the highest level of soil respiration in this experiment.

Competition history

• CSEF 2026 Earth & Environmental Sciences (Track 2) (Junior Division) · Entry J-09-07

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