Ogallala Water

Dr. Acosta-Martinez's research activities include:

• Evaluating soil quality/health under alternative management for conventional tilled cotton in semiarid-sandy soils of the Southern High Plains.
• Documenting microbial community size, structure and function in different systems of US (organic farming, corn and sorghum for biofuels, livestock production, CRP).
• The development, validation, and interpretation of soil health indicators.
• Microbiology traveling in dust.

Current Projects

• Soil health as affected by increasing years of restoration under CRP and as converted to agricultural land in TX.
• Microbial community diversity and functions as affected by the complex interactions of management-climate change under producer fields in a semiarid region.
• Soil health evaluation across the Ogallala aquifer region.
• National Soil Health Assessment with NRCS, Soil Health Institute and Soil Renaissance.

Selected Publications

Acosta-Martinez V, Van Pelt S, Moore-Kucera J, Baddock MC, Zobeck TM. 2015 Microbiology of wind-eroded sediments: Current knowledge and future research directions. Aeolian Research 18: 99-113

Acosta-Martínez V, Waldrip H. 2014. Soil enzyme activities as affected by manure types, application rates, and management practices. In: He Z, Zhang H. (eds.), Applied Manure and Nutrient Chemistry for Sustainable Agriculture and Environment. Springer Publishers.

Acosta-Martínez V, Cotton J, Gardner T, Moore-Kucera J, Zak J, Wester D, Cox S. 2014. Predominant bacterial and fungal assemblages in agricultural soils during a record drought and heat wave and linkages to enzyme activities of biogeochemical cycling. Applied Soil Ecology, 84: 69-82.