Experiment Station Hires Environmental Soil Scientist
VERNON – From phosphorous in Arkansas and Oklahoma to nitrates in Texas, Dr. Paul DeLaune said he is dedicated to cleaning up the environment.
DeLaune was recently hired as an assistant professor and environmental soil scientist for the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station.
He will be working at the Texas A&M University System Agricultural Research and Extension Center near Vernon, where he will be developing a new soil science program from scratch.
“There are water quality concerns here,” he said, adding they are primarily related to nitrates.
DeLaune said he hopes to help producers mesh management practices, such as sub-surface drip irrigation, nutrient management and conservation tillage, in a way that will conserve water and improve water quality through reduced nitrate leaching.
He also wants to answer questions such as: Is over-fertilization occurring? By working with different scenarios, he will work to identify best management practices and quantify how well they work.
The work will be done primarily with cotton and wheat crops, as well as the use of sub-surface drip irrigation which may be applied to future biofuel crops such as canola, DeLaune said.
“I would also like to look at water quality in the streams,” he said. “Sediment and high salt content are of concern, as well as different bacteria.”
Looking at the areas of concern and identifying the contributing factors to the problem is the first step, DeLaune said. The next step will be installing some management practices and following up to see how well that alleviates the problem.
He said he hopes to collaborate with researchers in the Stephenville and Amarillo areas on a variety of manure issues.
A native of McAlester, Okla., DeLaune earned a bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma State University and master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Arkansas, where he studied soil sciences and agronomy.
He has been working in environmental quality since he was an undergraduate: first with composting of poultry litter, then water quality and phosphorous.
DeLaune’s dissertation focused on developing a phosphorous index for pastures. It was adopted by the state of Arkansas in 2001 and is used as a basis for nutrient management plans statewide, he said.
His dissertation was funded in large part by the city of Tulsa because city officials alleged Arkansas streams that flowed into the city’s drinking water source had high levels of phosphorous from the poultry operations.
A lawsuit settled out of court mandated that an index be developed for phosphorous in the Eucha Spavinaw Watershed, which encompasses portions of Oklahoma and Arkansas, DeLaune said. He was a part of the team that developed the index selected by the federal court judge.
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