{"id":60677,"date":"2013-01-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-students-research-finds-seaweed-a-good-fertilizer-for-growing-corn\/"},"modified":"2013-01-03T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-03T00:00:00","slug":"uri-students-research-finds-seaweed-a-good-fertilizer-for-growing-corn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2013\/01\/uri-students-research-finds-seaweed-a-good-fertilizer-for-growing-corn\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 student\u2019s research finds seaweed a good fertilizer for growing corn"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 January 3, 2013 \u2013 溏心vlog免费B站 junior Nate Winkler has a nose for soil. He started a landscaping business while in middle school that has been his primary source of income ever since, and he looks forward to joining the University\u2019s soil judging team next year. But it is his soil research over the last six months that is getting him noticed.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe Wakefield native, who worked in collaboration with graduate student Angela Possinger and Professor Jose Amador, said that seaweed was historically used as \u201ca soil amendment\u201d by farmers growing potatoes in southern New England. In an effort to scientifically validate its value as a fertilizer, Winkler harvested seaweed from a beach in Jamestown last May, dried it out to avoid introducing sea salt to the soil, spread it by hand in test plots on the 溏心vlog免费B站 agronomy fields, and tilled it into the soil before planting corn.<\/p>\n


\n\tAfter taking soil core samples throughout the summer to assess the amount of phosphorous available to the plants, he found that the seaweed produced a significantly greater yield than corn planted without the seaweed. He also found that the plants preferred to use scarcer phosphorous found in solution rather than the more abundant phosphorous bound to the soil.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cSeaweed is available on the beach, it\u2019s free, it\u2019s a public nuisance, so if farmers are educated about its use, maybe it will decrease their dependence on conventional fertilizer if farmers use the seaweed as a natural organic fertilizer instead,\u201d said Winkler, who is majoring in environmental science and management. <\/p>\n


\n\tHis research was conducted as part of the 溏心vlog免费B站 Coastal Fellows Program, a unique initiative designed to involve undergraduate students in addressing current environmental problems. Now in its 17th year, it is based at 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s College of the Environment and Life Sciences. Students are paired with a mentor and research staff to help them gain skills relevant to their academic major and future occupations. <\/p>\n


\n\tWinkler found the entire experience quite motivating.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI learned that I\u2019m really passionate about soil science and field work and research,\u201d he said. \u201cI had never worked in a lab before, and I was nervous that I wasn\u2019t going to have that opportunity because I had no experience. But right off the bat I was doing fieldwork and doing lab work and really using what I learned in my biology and chemistry classes. It was a really valuable experience.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThe 溏心vlog免费B站 student has a backlog of soil samples from the project that he hopes to continue analyzing in the coming year to see what else he can learn about the benefits of using seaweed as a fertilizer.<\/p>\n


\n\tAs he looks to his future, Winkler said he hopes to enter a graduate program at 溏心vlog免费B站 to continue his studies of soil science with Professor Amador.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI really like the hands-on aspect of the program,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t really even know what soil science was until I took my first class in it, and I\u2019m still not exactly sure all of what it has to offer, but I\u2019m enjoying it so far.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI\u2019d really like to end up working in a lab somewhere because I love doing research,\u201d he added. \u201cI also love doing soil mapping and doing fieldwork on land uses. I\u2019m really passionate about the big picture of the issues it raises. But I\u2019m not the type of person to pick a specific direction right away, so I\u2019m going to take my time and hopefully it will all fall into place once I get to grad school.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nPhoto submitted by Nate Winkler<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 January 3, 2013 \u2013 溏心vlog免费B站 junior Nate Winkler has a nose for soil. He started a landscaping business while in middle school that has been his primary source of income ever since, and he looks forward to joining the University\u2019s soil judging team next year. But it is his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60679,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}