PI: Rajan Ghimire, Ph.D.
My research focuses on improving efficiency, profitability, and soil environmental quality in dryland and limited-irrigation cropping systems. I am interested in soil organic matter dynamics, nutrient cycling, soil-plant relations, and greenhouse gas emissions, soil organic matter-microbial community interactions, and their relationships with sustainable crop production and ecosystem services.
Postdoctoral Associate
Wooiklee Paye, Ph.D.
Dr. Paye's research involves evaluating conservation tillage systems and exploring the potential of improving soil health and resilience through innovative crop and forage production practices in semiarid regions.
Wooiklee Paye, Ph.D.
Dr. Paye's research involves evaluating conservation tillage systems and exploring the potential of improving soil health and resilience through innovative crop and forage production practices in semiarid regions.
Graduate students
Pramod Acharya, Ph.D. Student, 2019-2022: Soil health and forage quality. The main goal of Pramod's research is to find a suitable mixture of cover crop in limited-irrigation corn-sorghum rotation that leads to crop diversity and improve soil resilience in forage production systems.
Vesh R. Thapa, Ph.D. Student, 2018-2021: Soil health and crop production in limited irrigation cropping systems. Vesh is comparing soil health indicators such as active C, mineralizable C, available N, soil aggregation, and crop yields in limited irrigation cropping systems with diverse cover crops.
Laboratory technician
- Raquel De La Torre
Laboratory assistants/temporary help
- Jaden Scott
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
Vesh R. Thapa, M.S. 2018: 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 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL.
Babu Ram Khanal, Visiting Scholar from Agriculture and Forestry University, Nepal. Soil C and N change during the transition from irrigated to dryland cropping system, 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.