Graduate Student Spotlight: Tessa Bennett
Tessa Bennett is a first year Master’s student at the Texas Tech University’s Department of Plant and Soil Science and a Research Assistant at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Lubbock, TX under the supervision of Dr. Katie Lewis. Tessa joined the Lewis Lab after completing her B.S. in Crop and Soil Science at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, GA (2022). The Folkston, GA native moved to Lubbock in Spring ‘22 with her now fiancé, Newton Roberts, and their dog, Winston.
Her research project funded by Shell International Exploration and Production Inc. will explore nutrient cycling and greenhouse gas emissions following various manure applications in semi-arid cotton production. Dr. Lewis and Tessa were recently showcased in an AgriLife TODAY article (https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2023/04/06/manure-management-agrilife-research-studies-to-answer-questions/) .
The project will include various wheat-cotton cropping systems with treatments incorporating no fertilizer/manure controls, inorganic fertilizer, pre-plant commercial composted feedlot manure, pre-plant provided separated dairy feedlot manure, pre-plant provided whole digestate, and pre-plant commercial raw feedlot manure. To monitor greenhouse gas fluxes following manure applications, Tessa is using a LI-COR LI-8100A system that includes 16 separate long-term auto sampling chambers (https://www.licor.com/env/support/LI-8100A/topics/more-details-long-term.html ) and a GASMET DX-4015 portable gas analyzer (https://www.gasmet.com/products/category/portable-gas-analyzers/dx4015/). With this system, Tessa is able to monitor real-time gas fluxes that include methane, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, nitric oxide, ammonia, and water vapor.
