2025-04-08, 16:30–17:00, Expert Room 11
Soil Aggregate stability is an important indicator of soil health. Aggregate stability corelates to critical soil ecosystem functions including water infiltration and storage, erosion resistance, and plant rooting. Unfortunately, traditional measures of soil aggregate stability are time- and labor-intensive which limits the applicability of aggregate stability as a widely available soil health indicator. Recent research efforts have developed image-based methods for aggregating stability measurements which generate comparable results to traditional methods in significantly less time. The Soil Health Institute and their partners at the University of Sydney have developed a smartphone application for measuring soil aggregate stability using image-based methods. The application, Slakes, is available for free on both android and iOS devices. was created by the Soil Health Institute in conjunction with the University of Sydney. The app calculates an aggregate stability index by monitoring changes in aggregate size before and after being submerged in water for 10 minutes. This method, while different from traditional approaches, has been shown to be sensitive to changes in agricultural management practices (e.g. cover crops and reduced tillage) and is a viable indicator of soil health. In this workshop, we will discuss the measurements of soil aggregate stability, guide users through aggregate stability measurements using Slakes, and discuss integrating Slakes results into soil health monitoring efforts.
Dr. Jason Ackerson is a Research Soil Scientist and Program Director for several soil carbon measurement and technology discovery projects at the Soil Health Institute. Dr. Ackerson previously served as an Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in the Department of Agronomy at Purdue University, where his research focused on developing proximal sensors to quantify soil properties and develop digital soil maps. He received his B.S. in Natural Resources and Environmental Science from the University of Illinois and M.S. and Ph.D. in Soil Science from Texas A&M University. Dr. Ackerson is a member of the Soil Science Society of America and American Geophysical Union.