8 April 03

LTRAS Research Authorization Request

Prior authorization is required for all research activity at LTRAS as specified in the LTRAS Charter. This form requests authorization for research activities and provides a permanent record of where they were conducted.

To comply with the federal Worker Protection Standard, anyone working in the LTRAS plots must have the required
training certificate on file. The training takes 30 minutes, is good for 5 years, and is offered by most departments in the
College of Agriculture & Environmental Sciences. Documentation of training may be faxed to LTRAS at 757-3158.

Certain low-impact activities require less supporting information (see below) and can often be approved without a full committee meeting, usually within a few days. For proposed activities not qualifying as low-impact, please complete the entire form and submit your proposal at least one month before any field activity.

Your Name:
Your Email Address:

Name of faculty member with overall responsibility for this research:
Dept.:
Phone:
FAX:
email:

Name of person organizing field operations, if different:
Phone:
email:

Summarize the proposed research giving a descriptive title of your proposed research project (e.g., "Comparison of soil water status in rainfed fallow/wheat vs. WLCC/wheat systems.") and a brief description of what scientific question(s) you are trying to answer.
Title: Question(s):

If you are requesting archival samples only (no field sampling), skip to that section.

What kind of field sampling will you need to do (edit box below as needed)?
Soil core samples/plot: Core diameter(mm): Maximum depth(cm): Plant samples(describe): Approx.dates:

1) If you will need advance notice of certain field operations (e.g., coordinate sampling with irrigation), please specify.
No advance notice needed.

2) Which cropping system(s) at LTRAS (each a two-year rotation) and which phase of the rotation will you study? To specify the rotation phase, check the box for the crop that will be grown during the spring and summer of 2002.
Example: to sample tomatoes in the summer of 2003, in the wheat/tomato rotation, check "wheat" box.
Note that the use of 15N is allowed in only one phase of each cropping system, namely those in the right hand column, below.

Rainfed wheat/fallow (unfertilized control)...................wheat (spring 2002)....fallow (spring 2002)
Rainfed wheat/winter legume cover crop (WLCC) .......wheat ..........................WLCC
Rainfed wheat/fallow (fertilized).................................. wheat...........................fallow
Irrigated wheat/fallow (unfertilized control) .................wheat...........................fallow
Irrigated wheat/WLCC ..................................................wheat...........................WLCC
Irrigated wheat/fallow (fertilized)................................ wheat...........................fallow
Conventional wheat/tomato........................................... wheat..........................tomato
Conventional corn/tomato............................................. corn............................ tomato
Legume/corn/tomato..................................................... corn (after WLCC)......tomato (no WLCC)
Organic corn/tomato..................................................... corn (after WLCC)......tomato (after WLCC)

3) Will your research require any modification of farming operations? Any additional costs for labor, farm equipment rental, or materials will be charged to the faculty member submitting the proposal. Check all that apply.
Yes; microplots will need to be managed differently. (Example: an unfertilized microplot within a fertilized plot.)
Yes; farming operations will need to avoid our dataloggers, lysimeters, etc.
Yes; we will need to specify the timing of some operations. (Example: schedule irrigation around our sampling.)
No; we will not request any modifications of farming operations.

"Low-impact sampling" is defined as:

soil cores < 40 mm in diameter and < 30 cm deep (up to 50 cores per plot per year),
removal of individual leaves of crops or weeds (up to 20 per plot per year), and
any nondestructive measurements (visual observations, clamp-on chlorophyll meter, IR thermometer, etc.)
no application of isotopes, tracers, biocides, or other chemicals
staying out of plots when, in the judgement of the Associate Director, they are too wet for foot traffic.

4) Will your research require any activities not meeting this definition of "low impact"? (Check any that apply.)
Yes; we will use a shovel or trowel for some of the sampling.
Yes; some soil sampling will require cores > 40 mm in diameter.
Yes; we will need more than 50 cores or 20 leaves per plot per year.
Yes; we will need to harvest the entire aboveground portion of one or more plants.
Yes; we will need to harvest plant roots.
Yes; we will need to dig pits or trenches or install instruments.
Yes; we will need to apply isotopes, biocides, or other chemicals.
Yes; we will need access to the plots even under wet conditions.
No; all our sampling will be "low-impact" by the above definition.

If you checked "Yes" above, you must also fill out the "High Impact" section below, but note that exemptions may allow come kinds of sampling anywhere in the plots immediately prior to certain farming operations (e.g., plowing), and that certain high-impact activities or to the section on "Exemptions" at the end.

If you answered "No" to questions 3 and 4 above (or "Yes" to question 4A), you may be eligible for rapid approval of sampling, restricted to the "low-impact sampling area", shaded green in the map below. Arrows indicate access routes -- please don't walk through yield monitoring area or numbered microplots (except microplots assigned to your project; see below). Right-click plot map below and select "ViewImage" (in Netscape) to see details.

If you answered "no" to questions 3 and 4, and you are willing to limit your sampling to the green-shaded low-impact sampling areas, you do not need to complete the remainder of the form. Click below to submit.

Additional information needed for high-impact activities

High-impact research activities, such as use of isotopes or removal of large-diameter soil cores, can be authorized by the LTRAS Director (preliminary tests within 5 ft of plot edge) or by the Executive Committee (in microplot areas shown above) with sufficient justification. Future researchers at LTRAS need to know when and where these activities took place, however. To facilitate record-keeping and minimize negative interactions among projects, high-impact research activities are restricted to microplots allocated to individual researchers. There are 40 microplots per plot, each 15 x 15 ft (English units are based on farm equipment dimensions). Based on current and anticipated demand, there is a lifetime limit of 4 microplots per plot per faculty member (8 for a project involving active participation by two faculty members, etc.), and microplot fees may be imposed. Reassigning the same plots is intended to encourage faculty to keep careful records on any activity within "their" microplots that might affect subsequent research. This could include, for example, use of GPS to record exactly where large diameter soil cores were taken, so that these areas can be avoided for one or more years. Two adjacent microplots may be assigned if farm equipment limitations etc. make it impossible to confine effects within one microplot.

5) If the activities described in this proposal will use microplots already assigned to you , please specify the microplot numbers (from 1-40, as in plot map above). Activities defined above as low-impact may be conducted within your assigned microplots without additional approvals.

6) How many new microplots (i.e., not already assigned to you) are you requesting per plot? (See lifetime limit, above.)
0
1
2
3
4

7) What account number will cover charges for additional crop management costs or microplot fees?

8) If your microplots will need different agronomic management from the rest of the plot, please explain how they will be treated differently, and who will do the work. Example: "Microplots should be cultivated normally, but should not receive herbicide; we will allow weeds to grow to see their effect on crop growth, but we will remove all weeds by hand before they make viable seed." If you will have several treatments (e.g., different fertilizer rates), you will need to fill out this form once for each treatment, specifying the number of subplots per treatment.
Manage microplot same as rest of plot

9) If you plan to install dataloggers, neutron probe access tubes, etc., that could be damaged by farm equipment, please specify what will be installed in your microplots, when they will be installed and removed, and any special arrangements to avoid damage during field operations. Example: "Soil temperature probes will be installed after crop emergence and removed before harvest. Probes will be placed in the crop row where they will not be damaged by cultivation, but we will need prior notice of cultivation so that we can disconnect cables connecting temperature probes to our dataloggers, which will be placed at the edge of the field."
No sensors or equipment will be installed

10) If you will need to specify the timing of some farming operations, such as irrigation or harvest, please explain. Example: "Ideally, the first irrigation of the year should occur on the same day for all systems studied. However, a difference of up to two days is acceptable." Because the timing of operations is constrained by weather and equipment availability, an otherwise acceptable proposal may be rejected if harvesting or irrigating at a particular time is required.
No modification of timing of farming operations needed.

11) Please describe (and briefly justify, in terms of your research objectives) any sampling involving root harvest or use of a shovel. Please include the maximum dimensions (diameter and depth) and number of resulting holes (per subplot per season). A citation to a published method may be useful in justifying your method, although methods may need to be modified in consideration of future users of the LTRAS site. Example: "In order to adequately describe root architecture, we need to dig up one tomato plant per microplot at first bloom, excavating to a depth of 50 cm or less, with hole diameter not to exceed 75 cm. This is a standard method, first described in J. Root Arch. 42:1132, and cited in most recent papers in the field."
We will not be excavating roots or using a shovel.

12) If you will be collecting soil cores > 40 mm in diameter, please specify number of cores per subplot (per year), diameter, and depth. Please explain why these large cores are needed, as in question 11.
All soil cores < 40 mm in diameter.

13) If you will need to apply any isotopes, biocides, tracers, or other chemicals, please provide details and explain why this is necessary for your research. Note that 15N can only be applied to one phase of each cropping system (see question 2).
No isotopes, biocides, tracers, or other chemicals.

14) Please explain and justify any other research activities that might have an effect on future research in the same subplots.
No other research activities (except those defined above as low-impact).

Request for Archival samples

Archival soil samples, composited by depth for each plot, are available for 1993, 1995, and 1997. We also have small quantities of plant samples from each year. Due to the anticipated demand for these samples over the decades, we can only release the amount actually used for analysis. If you have concerns about the uniformity of these samples, you can request enough to run two or more replicates of each sample. Contact the LTRAS Director to discuss your needs, then enter your request below.

Assistance from LTRAS staff

Will you need assistance from the LTRAS staff (e.g., in sampling or in managing microplots)? Typically, managing a microplot differently from the main plot will require some discussion, for example, to prevent irrigation water applied to a microplot from affecting neighboring microplots. But, unless specified otherwise, we will assume that your staff will be available to carry out any microplot management not involving farm equipment.

Justification for high-impact activities

Even research activities with major long-term effects may be approved if there is sufficient scientific justification and if the data cannot be obtained in another way. In addition to justification of specific activities in the boxes above, you may provide an overall justification here, explaining the importance of your work to science, to the development of more sustainable agricultural practices, etc.

By submitting this proposal, you agree to deposit data collected at the LTRAS site (or using samples collected at LTRAS) in the LTRAS Electronic Data Archive within two years of when the data were obtained (unless a longer period is authorized by the Executive Committee) as specified in the LTRAS Charter.

If you decide later that you need to do additional sampling, treatments, etc., in the same subplots (except for those activities defined above as "low impact"), please submit an additional copy of this form with the additional information.