Rex Omonode, AgCert Services (USA) Inc., 1901 S Harbor City Blvd., Suite 400, Melbourne, FL 32901,, Lucian Wielopolski, Bldg 490-D, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Environmental Sciences Department, Upton, NY 11973, Sudeep Mitra, Environmental Sciences Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, Oded Doron, Nuclear Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, Austin, Austin, TX 78759, Jeffrey Novak, USDA-ARS, USDA-ARS-Coastal Plains Research Center, 2611 W. Lucas Street, Florence, SC 29501-1241, and Alvarus Chan, Consultant, AgCert International, PO Box 116, Melbourne, FL 32902.
Rapid and accurate procedures are needed to not only quantify but also to assess changes in soil C due to changes in adopted management systems. Current procedures that are used to evaluate soil C are invasive, costly, and are time and labor intensive. Emerging technologies including Inelastic Neutron Scattering (INS) procedure have the potential to significantly reduce the problems associated with current soil C measurement procedures. The INS procedure is a rapid, noninvasive, in-situ, and field deployable system that have shown great promise for soil C assessment. In the static mode, the INS can assess soil C for individual measurement positions, and can also integrate across fields to give a mean soil C value for the entire field when operated in a dynamic scanning mode. Laboratory and limited field experiments indicated that the INS can be an accurate and rapid procedure to assess soil C. The results of field experiments at Florence, SC, measuring C using the INS system are compared with those measured by established procedures of dry combustion that measures SOC.