Institute of Soil Science, Plant Nutrition and Environmental Protection

Honorable mention by the Catena journal on the occasion of World Soil Day

On the occasion of World Soil Day, the Catena journal awarded three scientific publications. One of them is a publication co-authored by a PhD student and employees of the Institute of Soil Sciences, Plant Nutrition and Environmental Protection entitled: "Multiproxy approach to the reconstruction of soil denudation events and the disappearance of Luvisols in the loess landscape of south-western Poland". Congratulations on the honorable mention!!

In the "Geoderma" journal an article entitled "Meteoric 10Be as a tracer of soil redistribution rates and reconstruction tool of loess-mantled soils (SW, Poland)" by dr inż. Joanna Kowalska, dr hab. inż. Jarosław Waroszewski, prof. UPWr and dr hab. inż. Beata Łabaz, prof. UPWr, has been published in cooperation with a scientific team led by prof. Markus Egli from the University of Zurich.

New article in Catena "Multiproxy approach to the reconstruction of soil denudation events and the disappearance of Luvisols in the loess landscape of south-western Poland"

In the Catena (Elsevier) an article was published entitled: "Multiproxy approach to the reconstruction of soil denudation events and the disappearance of Luvisols in the loess landscape of south-western Poland". The authors of the article are employees of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, UPWr, UWr and Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics in Germany The article is available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S034181622200710X

New article: Are Natural or Anthropogenic Factors Influencing Potentially Toxic Elements’ Enrichment in Soils in Proglacial Zones? An Example from Kaffiøyra (Oscar II Land, Spitsbergen)

The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (MDPI) published an article: "Are Natural or Anthropogenic Factors Influencing Potentially Toxic Elements' Enrichment in Soils in Proglacial Zones? An Example from Kaffiøyra (Oscar II Land, Spitsbergen)" as a result of collaboration of employees of the Institute of Soil Sciences, Plant Nutrition and Environmental Protection (UPWr) and the Department of Soil Science and Agrophysics (UR Kraków).

SYStem – Share Your Soils

SYStem - Share Your Soils was an international educational project dedicated to promoting knowledge about Europe's soils. As part of the project, workshops for students and doctoral students were held in three countries, during which they learned to prepare soil descriptions under the supervision of their tutors and worked with an application enabling "sharing" of classified soils with other users. During the five-day trips, the participants took part in lectures and in field work.

An article by the team of M. Dudek, C. Kabała, B. Łabaz and M. Krupski was published in a special issue of the "Land" journal, entitled "Application of Infrared Spectroscopy Techniques for Identification of Ancient Vegetation and Soil Change on Loess Areas". The publication concerned an attempt to use spectroscopic methods to determine the origin of organic matter in contemporary and buried Chernozems developed from loess.

New article in Catena titled: "Clay mineralogy fingerprinting of loess-mantled soils on different underlying substrates in the south-western Poland"

An new article was published in Catena by an international team: J.B. Kowalska, PhD (UPWr), M. Vögtli (UZH Zurich), Prof. J. Kierczak (UWr), Prof. M. Egli (UZH Zurich) and J. Waroszewski, PhD (UPWr). The study is focusing on determining the source of clay minerals: loess vs. the underlying geological substrate. The article is one of the results of Joanna Kowalska's postdoc stay at the Department of Geochronology at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

Our PhD student will study the toxicity of soils in urban plots

Our PhD student, M.Sc. Dariusz Gruszka in his PhD thesis, which he is carrying out under the supervision of Prof. Katarzyna Szopka and Iwona Gruss PhD, is trying to answer the question: Are the plants grown on the urban plots healthy? In his PhD thesis, he plans to study ecotoxicity, i.e. toxicity to living organisms and bioavailability, and to explain the extent to which trace elements contained in soils of urban plots are taken up by plants grown on them.

A study of an ancient fieldsystem in the Białowieża Forest published

The paper just came out in Geoderma: M. Krupski, B. Kruczkowska, P. Kittel, M. Jakubczak, G. Skrzyński, A. Golyeva, K. Niedziółka, P. Urbańczyk, Evidence of prehistoric and early medieval agriculture and its impact on soil and land relief transformation in the Białowieża natural forest (NE Poland). The research was funded by NCN Poland (grant 2016/20/W/HS3/00593 carried out at IA UKSW in Warsaw).

New project awarded to Prof. Jerzy Weber, titled "Soil management effects on Soil Organic Matter Properties And Carbon Sequestration ( SOMPACS)"

The aim of the project is to define soil management methods that enrich the soil with the fractions of organic matter most resistant to microbial decomposition, contributing to carbon sequestration, under different soil and climatic conditions in Europe and the USA. The project will be implemented in cooperation with research units from Poland (Warsaw, Lublin, Szczecin, TERRA Agricultural Producers Group) and from abroad (Wyoming, UK, Lithuania, Italy, Germany, Ireland).