U of I planning symposium showcasing new Deep Soil Ecotron
Event to showcase facility that will research soils at previously unexplored depths
March 17, 2026
MOSCOW, Idaho — University of Idaho has transported three of the largest intact soil columns ever unearthed about 130 miles from where they were dug in Sandpoint to a unique, new laboratory on the university’s Moscow campus.
Those 10-foot-deep columns have been placed inside of heavily instrumented, 9-ton chambers, called lysimeters, within the new Deep Soil Ecotron, where U of I researchers and collaborators from throughout the world will manipulate and study soil ecosystem processes and microbial communities at previously unexplored depths.
The ecotron team will showcase their progress and highlight the research possibilities the facility affords during a two-day Deep Soil Ecotron Symposium, scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, April 6-7 at the university’s Seed Potato Germplasm Laboratory, 753 Perimeter Drive. The theme will be “Building Deep Networks for Agriculture.”
The free symposium marks the first large event involving the ecotron since the roughly $19 million facility, funded with a U.S. National Science Foundation grant, celebrated its soft opening in May 2025. Professor Michael Strickland is the project’s principal investigator and Associate Professor Zachary Kayler is co-PI.
They’re planning for a group of about 50 participants, including farmers, researchers, industry leaders and data scientists.
“I think that kind of mixed audience lends itself to surprises in terms of conversations and ideas and answers,” Kayler said.
The ecotron’s goal is to shed light on the relationships among deep soil communities and processes, how they respond to environmental change and how they impact other ecosystems. Researchers can monitor ecotron experiments in real time and manipulate variables within lysimeters remotely using a cellphone. For example, they can control moisture and greenhouse gas levels and adjust the soil temperature from 23 degrees to 104 degrees.
The ecotron encompasses 24 lysimeters — three of which contain intact cores and three of which have been packed with loose soil, all taken from the university’s Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center (SOAC). SOAC will preserve the pits where the cores were extracted for soil-related outreach and education.
The original grasses remain growing on the top surface of the intact soil cores, enabling researchers to analyze how living roots affect deep soil systems. Lysimeters will be filled and refilled based on research demands.
The forthcoming symposium will include short presentations, small-group discussions and regular tours of the ecotron, which is located in the J.W. Martin Lab, 1355 W. Sixth St. Students will present posters at the symposium about their deep-soil and regenerative agriculture projects, and scientists from throughout the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) will present updates on research in adjacent, interconnected fields.
“All of the research we’re doing in CALS and the Department of Soil and Water Systems is available for these growers and producers to access,” Kayler said. “The Deep Soil Ecotron is part of it, and it’s all tied together.”
A brass ensemble featuring students from the Lionel Hampton School of Music will perform for guests at 4 p.m. April 6 in room 106 of the E.J. Iddings Agriculture Science Building, 606 Rayburn St. Following the performance, Oregon State University Professor Markus Kleber, who was among the pioneers in explaining how carbon is sequestered in the soil profile, will give a lecture, Anyone planning to participate should RSVP at go.uidaho.edu/ecotron-rsvp by Friday, April 3.
Thus far, the ecotron team has been focused on commissioning the facility, including fine-tuning and testing systems, equipment and procedures. Further commissioning efforts includes examining how deep-rooted plants at the surface of a soil core influences carbon at varying depths below ground.
“Once we have verified we have grown the plant for a significant amount of time and we are seeing increases in soil carbon below ground, we want to see what happens when you increase soil temperature,” Kayler said. “That’s what we’re seeing naturally anyway. We can increase the temperature and see how much of that new carbon deposited into the soil actually remains.”
Other colleges are also benefiting from the ecotron. College of Engineering students are planning capstone projects testing the use of sound waves for imaging below-ground structures. A graduate student from the College of Art and Architecture has renovated the ecotron’s entrance foyer using Idaho soil monoliths, which are narrow slices of soil that are extracted from a place of interest, glued onto a board in their original configuration and displayed as artwork. U of I maintains one of the nation’s largest collections of soil monoliths.
Media contact
Zachary Kayler
Associate Professor, Department of Soil and Water Systems
208-885-5616
zkayler@uidaho.edu