Novel Soil Barrier Systems Potentially Protect Urban Growing Beds from Legacy Soil Contamination and Improve Soil Health. Issue 1 (27th December 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Moskal, Blake T.; Berthrong, Sean T.
• Is Part Of: Urban agriculture & regional food systems. Volume 3:Issue 1(2018)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 9
• Publication Date: 2018-12-27
• Subjects: Urban agriculture -- Periodicals; Agriculture -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Agriculture -- Economic aspects -- Periodicals; Agriculture -- Economic aspects; Agriculture -- Social aspects; Urban agriculture; Periodicals; 338.17
• DOI: 10.2134/urbanag2018.06.0003
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2575-1220

Abstract

Abstract : Urban agriculture is growing rapidly in the United States and can combat food deserts and insecurity in metropolitan areas. However, urban farm soils are challenged by legacies of contamination and degradation. Heavy metal contaminated soil, lack of nutrients, and poor soil physical characteristics have led urban farmers in Indianapolis to a novel strategy of layering wood chips on top of background soil to create a barrier between contaminated or low quality soil and healthy growing media. We examined the small group of farms that have begun using this strategy to test if these barriers were effective at preventing soil contamination and improving soil health. We sampled farm soils using either barrier strategies with new imported soil or farming in native soil. Growing bed and background soils were analyzed for heavy metals, soil nutrients, and soil physical characteristics. Though the novelty of the method limited sample size, barrier strategies appeared to be effective at separating contaminated background soils from growing beds. Farming with either barriers or in non‐contaminated native urban soils increased soil nutrients and improved soil physical characteristics that support plant growth. In many growing beds, soil phosphorus was very high and posed a potential danger to local waterways. Though the number of sites is limited, these results indicate that barrier strategies are a potentially viable strategy to protect plants, farmers, and consumers from soil contaminants and that this barrier method should be examined in more depth for potential broader application in cities with legacies of soil contamination.