People

Rajan Ghimire, Ph.D., 

Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator

My research focuses on improving efficiency, profitability, and soil environmental quality in dryland and irrigation cropping systems. The primary area of my research involves soil organic matter dynamics, carbon and nutrient cycling in agroecosystems, greenhouse gas emissions, soil organic matter-microbial community interactions, and their relationships with sustainable crop production and ecosystem services. Contact me if you are interested in these research topics and would like to work with us. More information about our work:

Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences

Google scholar site

ResearchGate

Wooiklee S. Paye, Ph.D. 

Postdoctoral Scholar

Dr. Paye's research involves exploring the potential of improving soil health and resilience through innovative crop and forage production practices, tillage management in drylands, perennial/pasture cropping. 

Vesh R. Thapa, Ph.D. 

Postdoctoral Scholar

Dr. Thapa is specialized in soil health and carbon management research. His research projects are focused on evaluating agricultural management strategies for soil carbon sequestration and soil health assessment in arid and semi-arid agroecosystems.

Olufemi Adebayo

Ph.D. Studnet

Olufemi Adebayo is interested in soil health and soil-plant water dynamics. His research project evaluates cover crop and compost effects on soil health and soil-plant water dynamics in winter wheat - sorghum - fallow rotation.  

Sundar Sapkota

Ph.D. Student

Sundar is interested in farming systems innovations for improving soil health and agroecosystem resilience. His project evaluates the effects of circular grass buffer strips on soil health and C/N cycling.
  

Pramod Acharya 

Ph.D. Student

Pramod is working on forage production systems. He investigates soil C cycling and sequestration potential, greenhouse gas emissions, and nitrogen transformation in forage production systems.  

Recent graduates and postdocs

Sk. Musfiq-Us-Salehin, M.S. 2020: Evaluate soil N pools and N2O emissions in the dryland sorghum. More on his work is available here. 

Abdelaziz Nilahyane, Ph.D., 2018-2019: Evaluating soil health indicators and forage quality in a corn-sorghum rotation. Now Research Fellow at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Morocco.  

Vesh R. Thapa, M.S. 2018/Ph.D. 2021: Agricultural management systems affect soil health and crop production in drylands of Eastern New Mexico (Role: Major advisor). Now a Ph.D. student at NMSU.

Mikayla J. Allan, M.S. 2018: Understanding soil spatial and temporal variability for forage corn production and hydrological modeling within New Mexico. Now working for NRCS, NM.  

Binod Ghimire, M.S. 2017, Cover crops effects on soil organic matter dynamics, weed suppression, Now a Ph.D. Student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL. 

Visiting Scholars

Babu Ram Khanal, Visiting Scholar from Agriculture and Forestry University, Nepal. Soil C and N change during the transition from irrigated to dryland cropping. October 2018 to January 2019. 

Yaqiong Fan, Visiting Scholar from China Agricultural University, Simulating SOC dynamics and GHG emissions in cropping systems using DayCent Model, September/October 2017.