Kira Borden
Postdoctoral Fellow
Project 1: Organic vegetable nutrient management
I’m leading a project at UBC Farm and a working research farm on Vancouver Island to develop improved organic nutrient management practices that address the major production trade-offs related to adding nutrients to an environment: crop yield vs. nutrient losses/loading in soil. I am also investigating how vegetable crops perform and acquire nutrients in synchrony with organic amendment mineralization. This project will contribute to improved understanding of how organic amendments can be better matched to environment and cropping system.
Project 2: Agricultural greenhouse gasses in high-value cropping systems
I am quantifying greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, N2O, CH4) from UBC Farm using in-field FTIR (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy) technology. The effects of different soil amendments and cropping systems on emission rates are being compared. Data from this research support the project’s collaborative interdisciplinary team’s efforts in collecting emission data across multiple farms in lower mainland BC. We aim to parameterize process-based carbon and nitrogen models for farms in the region. This project will provide much needed field-based measurements of actual emission rates for BC and contribute to improved understanding of how management and environmental change can alter emissions.
Project 3: Soil water management
We are assessing farm management practices that can regulate the effects of high winter precipitation on cultivation and soil conditions in the spring. I am carrying out a field study of cover cropping vs. plastic tarping replicated on farms with different climatic and edaphic conditions, and monitoring the impacts on soil properties and nutrient dynamics in the growing season. This work aims to provide needed data on soil management strategies for small-scale farmers to improve the soil conditions for crop establishment in the spring when excess soil moisture is a major concern.
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Publications
- Benefits of phosphate solubilizing bacteria on belowground crop performance for improved crop acquisition of phosphorus (2021)
Microbiological Research, 252 - Root Functional Trait and Soil Microbial Coordination: Implications for Soil Respiration in Riparian Agroecosystems (2021)
Frontiers in Plant Science, 12 - Correction to: Nutrient acquisition strategies in agroforestry systems (Plant and Soil, (2019), 444, 1-2, (1-19), 10.1007/s11104-019-04232-5) (2020)
Plant and Soil, 453 (1-2), 15 - Fine-root morphological trait variation in tropical forest ecosystems: an evidence synthesis (2020)
Plant Ecology, 221 (1) - Soil texture moderates root functional traits in agroforestry systems across a climatic gradient (2020)
Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 295 - Variation in fine root traits reveals nutrient-specific acquisition strategies in agroforestry systems (2020)
Plant and Soil, 453 (1-2), 139-151 - Integrating nitrogen fixing structures into above- and belowground functional trait spectra in soy (Glycine max) (2019)
Plant and Soil, 440 (1-2), 53-69 - Management strategies differentially affect root functional trait expression in cocoa agroforestry systems (2019)
Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 39 (2) - Nutrient acquisition strategies in agroforestry systems (2019)
Plant and Soil, 444 (1-2) - Root biomass variation of cocoa and implications for carbon stocks in agroforestry systems (2019)
Agroforestry Systems, 93 (2), 369-381 - Agroecology in Canada: Towards an Integration of Agroecological Practice, Movement, and Science (2018)
Sustainability, - Interspecific variation of tree root architecture in a temperate agroforestry system characterized using ground-penetrating radar (2017)
Plant and Soil, 410 (1-2), 323-334 - Estimating coarse root biomass with ground penetrating radar in a tree-based intercropping system (2014)
Agroforestry Systems, - Intraspecific root plasticity in agroforestry systems across edaphic conditions (2014)
Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 185, 16-23
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