Improved soil biological health increases corn grain yield in N fertilized systems across the Corn Belt.

Nitrogenous fertilizers have nearly doubled global grain yields, but have also increased losses of reactive N to the environment. Current public investments to improve soil health seek to balance productivity and environmental considerations. However, data integrating soil biological health and crop N response to date is insufficient to reliably drive conservation policy and inform management.

A new cadmium reduction device for the microplate determination of nitrate in water, soil, plant tissue, and physiological fluids.

A reusable catalytic reductor consisting of 96 copperized-cadmium pins attached to a microplate lid was developed to simultaneously reduce nitrate (NO3-) to nitrite (NO2-) in all wells of a standard microplate. The resulting NO2- is analyzed colorimetrically by the Griess reaction using a microplate reader. Nitrate data from groundwater samples analyzed using the new device correlated well with data obtained by ion chromatography (r2 = 0.