Marginal lands have received wide attention for their potential to improve food security and support bioenergy production. However, environmental issues, ecosystem services, and sustainability have been widely raised over the use of marginal land. Knowledge of the extent, location, and quality of marginal lands as well as their assessment and management are limited and diverse. There are many perceptions about what constitutes marginal lands and so clear definitions are needed. This paper provides a review of the historical development of marginal concept, its application and assessment. Challenges and priority research needs of marginal land assessment and management were also discussed.

.[1] This study presents observations of atmospheric boundary layer CO 2 mole fraction from a nine-tower regional network deployed during the North American Carbon Program's Mid-Continent Intensive (MCI) during [2007][2008][2009]. The MCI region is largely agricultural, with well-documented carbon exchange available via agricultural inventories. By combining vegetation maps and tower footprints, we show the fractional influence of corn, soy, grass, and forest biomes varies widely across the MCI. Differences in the magnitude of CO 2 flux from each of these biomes lead to large spatial gradients in the monthly averaged CO 2 mole fraction observed in the MCI. In other words, the monthly averaged gradients are tied to regional patterns in net ecosystem exchange (NEE). The daily scale gradients are more weakly connected to regional NEE, instead being governed by local weather and large-scale weather patterns. With this network of tower-based mole fraction measurements, we detect climate-driven interannual changes in crop growth that are confirmed by satellite and inventory methods. These observations show that regional-scale CO 2 mole fraction networks yield large, coherent signals governed largely by regional sources and sinks of CO 2 .

The potential expansion of biofuel production raises food, energy, and environmental challenges that require careful assessment of the impact of biofuel production on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, soil erosion, nutrient loading, and water quality. In this study, we describe a spatially explicit integrative modeling framework (SEIMF) to understand and quantify the environmental impacts of different biomass cropping systems. This SEIMF consists of three major components: (1) a geographic information system (GIS)-based data analysis system to define spatial modeling units with resolution of 56 m to address spatial variability, (2) the biophysical and biogeochemical model Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) applied in a spatially-explicit way to predict biomass yield, GHG emissions, and other environmental impacts of different biofuel crops production systems, and (3) an evolutionary multiobjective optimization algorithm for exploring the trade-offs between biofuel energy production and unintended ecosystem-service responses. Simple examples illustrate the major functions of the SEIMF when applied to a nine-county Regional Intensive Modeling Area (RIMA) in SW Michigan to (1) simulate biofuel crop production, (2) compare impacts of management practices and local ecosystem settings, and (3) optimize the spatial configuration of different biofuel production systems by balancing energy production and other ecosystem-service variables. Potential applications of the SEIMF to support life cycle analysis and provide information on biodiversity evaluation and marginal-land identification are also discussed. The SEIMF developed in this study is expected to provide a useful tool for scientists and decision makers to understand sustainability issues associated with the production of biofuels at local, regional, and national scales.

Abstract.Carbon fixed by agricultural crops in the US creates regional CO 2 sinks where it is harvested and regional CO 2 sources where it is released back to the atmosphere. The quantity and location of these fluxes differ depending on the annual supply and demand of crop commodities. Data on the harvest of crop biomass, storage, import and export, and on the use of biomass for food, feed, fiber, and fuel were compiled to estimate an annual crop carbon budget for 2000 to 2008. With respect to US Farm Resource Regions, net sources of CO 2 associated with the consumption of crop commodities occurred in the Eastern Uplands, Southern Seaboard, and Fruitful Rim regions. Net sinks associated with the production of crop commodities occurred in the Heartland, Northern Great Plains, and Mississippi Portal regions. The national crop carbon budget was balanced to within 0.3 to 6.1 % yr −1 during the period of this analysis.

Net annual soil carbon change, fossil fuel emissions from cropland production, and cropland net primary production were estimated and spatially distributed using land cover defined by NASA's moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) and by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) cropland data layer (CDL). Spatially resolved estimates of net ecosystem exchange (NEE) and net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB) were developed. The purpose of generating spatial estimates of carbon fluxes, and the primary objective of this research, was to develop a method of carbon accounting that is consistent from field to national scales. NEE represents net on-site vertical fluxes of carbon. NECB represents all on-site and off-site carbon fluxes associated with crop production. Estimates of cropland NEE using moderate resolution (approximately 1 km2) land cover data were generated for the conterminous United States and compared with higher resolution (30-m) estimates of NEE and with direct measurements of CO2 flux from croplands in Illinois and Nebraska, USA. Estimates of NEE using the CDL (30-m resolution) had a higher correlation with eddy covariance flux tower estimates compared with estimates of NEE using MODIS. Estimates of NECB are primarily driven by net soil carbon change, fossil fuel emissions associated with crop production, and CO2 emissions from the application of agricultural lime. NEE and NECB for U.S. croplands were -274 and 7 Tg C/yr for 2004, respectively. Use of moderate- to high-resolution satellite-based land cover data enables improved estimates of cropland carbon dynamics.

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Stored soil water and growing season precipitation generally support early season growth of grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) in dryland areas but are insufficient to prevent water stress during critical latter growth stages. The objective of this study was to determine if growing plants in clumps affected early season growth and subsequent grain yield compared to uniformly spaced plants. We hypothesized that growing grain sorghum plants in clumps would result in fewer tillers and less vegetative growth so that more soil water would be available during the grain-filling period. Results from 3 yr at Bushland, TX, and 1 yr at Tribune, KS, showed that planting grain sorghum in clumps of three to six plants reduced tiller formation to about one per plant compared to about three for uniformly spaced plants. Grain yields were increased by clump planting by as much as 100% when yields were in the 1000 kg ha 21 range and 25 to 50% in the 2000 to 3000 kg ha 21 range, but there was no increase or even a small decrease at yields above 5000 kg ha 21 . Our results suggest that planting grain sorghum in clumps rather than spaced uniformly conserves soil water use until later in the season and may enhance grain yield in semiarid dryland environments.Abbreviations: LAI, leaf area index; PET, potential evapotranspiration.