Soil Thermal Properties to Groundwater Contamination: Reflections On Raymond Allmaras.

Scientists like Dr. Raymond R. Allmaras are very rare by today’s standards. Not only was he an excellent and meticulous scientist, but his career covered a very wide range of topics from basic research on soil temperature and heat flux to very applied research on soil erosion and conservation tillage. He published excellent research papers in almost ever area of soil science one can think of. However, my focus will be on his work on soil thermal properties, and his latter years’ work on reducing groundwater contamination in sandy soils through the Management Systems Evaluation Areas (MESA) projects. My first research, as an assistant professor, was with evaluation of soil temperature and heat flux under different conservation tillage systems in Wisconsin; and a publication by Allmaras et al. (1977) was the “Guiding Light” for me to publish several papers in this area. I found this publication and a chapter by van Wijk and de Vries was all I needed to bring me up to a reasonable level of understanding to have conversations on soil temperature and heat flux with soil physics “giants” like Drs. Champ Tanner and Ed Miller. Another impressive encounter for me was when I was able to work directly with Dr. Allmaras on one of the MSEA projects. He helped outline the tillage system we used to reduce use and leaching of the herbicides atrazine and alachlor. He was one of two guest editors for a special issue of the Soil and Tillage Research journal in which summary manuscripts of the four MSEA projects on groundwater contamination were published.