Bipin Bihari Mishra, Professor (Full), Pedology, School of Environmental Sciences, Haramaya University, Ethiopia.
  Nomination- World Congress Soil Science
 

Email dated: 19 November, 2013

Hello Dr. Mishra,

I am very sorry for the long period of silence in regards to your interest in the Universal Soil Classification Working Group.  I haven’t been able to get very much done with the group in general since summer.   As you know, the US government was shut down for almost 3 weeks in October and I wasn’t allowed to work during this time. That added to my backlog. I am now getting back into some important items for the USCS.

The working group has an opening as a task leader for the Task Group to  Compare guidelines for field profile descriptions(e.g., redox, structure, color, consistency, texture etc.).   The goal of this task group is to synthesize and harmonize a dataset for soil profile description options.  The current chair is  Joe Chiaretti, who works here at the National Soil Survey Center.  Task group membership includes Peter Schad, Reinhold Jahn, Phillip Owens, Sergey Goryachkin, Humberto Santos, Alberto Hernandez-Jimenez, and Doug Wysocki.

Joe has coordinated quite a bit of progress within this taskgroup and this is an important part of the working group goals and mission.


I think this would be an excellent place for you to become involved in the working group and provide needed expertise and feedback.

Please let me know of your interest and I will have Joe forward the materials he has assembled.

Thank you so much for your interest and patience.


Jon Hempel

 

Director

USDA-NRCS
National Soil Survey Center

100 Centennial Mall Lincoln, NE 68508

O-402-437-5389 C-402-881-5008

www.soils.usda.gov

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Email dated: 2nd February, 2014

Greetings
USCS Working Group,
I hope that this finds everyone doing well.  Winter here in the Midwest of the US has become quite long already, one of the coldest in several decades.  You all may know of an interesting tradition here in the US on February 2, which is known as ‘Groundhog Day’.  Unfortunately as legend goes, if the groundhog sees his shadow on Feb 2., he’ll scurry back into his burrow and we are in for another 6 weeks of winter.  See news of Groundhog day here:

Onto USCS news:

We had an excellent response to the WCSS symposium with 10 abstracts submitted.  We chose 7 for oral and 3 for poster.  We’ll be able to have a full symposium with excellent series of presentations.

- Joe Chiaretti, who was the lead for the field profile description task group, has retired form NRCS.  Joe was our lead taxonomist and is an expert in Soil Taxonomy.   Joe’s position on the working group will be filled by Professor B. B. Mishra.  Professor Mishra has expressed interest in being associated with the working group for a number of years now.  His contact follows:

- Professor B.B.
Mishra, Ph.D.(IARI), FNAS,                              
University Professor-cum-Chief Scientist              
[First Registrar (Ex), BAU & Ex-Chairman, SSAC]
Department of Soil Science & Agricultural Chemistry              
Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour 813 210, Bhagalpur, India; M: 9801655450
bbmsoil@rediffmail.com
I am very happy to have Professor Mishra association with the group and I am certain he will make great contribution to the WG and be an excellent lead for this important task group.

As was agreed at the meeting this past summer, we have added another task group to study  organic soils.  Dr. Arwyn Jones, of the JRC, has graciously agreed to lead this new task group.  Most of us know Arwyn and his contact information follows:
- Communication
Officer and GIS developer
Communication, Awareness raising, EEA SOER, Atlases
Land Resource Management/SOIL action
Joint Research Center, European Union
Ispra, Italy a
rwyn.jones@jrc.ec.europa.eu

During the week of February 16, I will be attending a GSP workshop at the FAO to discuss how support for Pillar 5  will be assembled.  I think this is an excellent opportunity for the working group to gain support and show direction for this important Pillar.  I will keep this group informed of progress here.

During the week of February 23, Erika, Curtis, Phillip and I will meet at New Mexico State University.  We are appreciative of Curtis’ willingness to host us there.  We will be discussing the WCSS symposium, progress on database development, salt affected soils and other working group business.

Please keep in mind our agreed date to meet in association with the WCSS.  June 14.  We don’t have a meeting place just yet, but will work on that.

I hope that this brings everyone up to date, if anyone has any questions or other
things of interest to the WG, please do not hesitate to ‘reply all’ to this
message.
 
Best regards,
 
Jon
Hempel

Director
USDA-NRCS
National Soil Survey Center
100 Centennial Mall
Lincoln, NE 68508
O-402-437-5389
C-402-881-5008
www.soils.usda.gov
 
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