• A man speaking to a group of people; demonstration equipment on a folding table in the foreground.
  • Three people in a field.
  • Four people. One man talking, another person using a soil probe.
  • Three people standing in front of a building.
  • Man pouring a liquid from a graduated cylinder into a metal sprayer tank..
  • A small group of people standing in an orchard.

Soils and Water Program

The Soils and Water Program is based at Washington State University’s Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center (NWREC), which is nestled between the North Cascades and the Puget Sound in beautiful Skagit County. Our integrated research and extension program focuses on three core areas of soil and water management: soil-plant-water relationships, soil physical health, and soil fertility and water-nutrient interactions. We work across cropping systems to help farmers to make informed decisions about managing soil moisture, irrigation, soil health, and soil fertility to improve productivity, reduce costs, safeguard plant health, and promote good stewardship of our natural resources.

A man speaking to a group of people; demonstration equipment on a folding table in the foreground.

Soil Con Field Day

Gabe speaks about infiltration and preferential flow pathways using erosion boxes and tracer dyes in a soil profile at the 2023 Soil Con Field Day.
Three people in a field.

Controlled Drainage and Subirrigation

Scientific Assistant Ed Scheenstra, former postdoctoral research associate Dr. Navdeep Singh, and summer intern Alexis Perez characterize a soil profile on a dairy silage corn field prior to installing shallow monitoring wells.
Four people. One man talking, another person using a soil probe.

Farmer Participatory Research on Soil Health

Gabe works with farmers from the farm incubator Viva Farms to demonstrate how to measure soil compaction as part of a project that focuses on participatory research on soil health with beginning farmers.
Three people standing in front of a building.

CAHNRS Summer Internship

Summer intern Charity Jordan (left) worked closely with Gabe’s M.S. student, Claire Yost (center), as part of the CAHNRS internship program.
Man pouring a liquid from a graduated cylinder into a metal sprayer tank..

Stop the Rot

M.S. Student Sahil Thapa prepares to inoculate an onion crop with local plant pathogenic bacteria as part of research trials investigating how irrigation and nitrogen management impact bacterial bulb rots.
A small group of people standing in an orchard.

Regulated Deficit Irrigation in Cider Apple Production

M.S. student Claire Yost speaks at a cider apple field day on her research investigating whether regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) can reduce applied water, maintain fruit yield, and improve fruit and juice quality for hard cider production.