WINNIPEG — Soil health has become such a large part of agriculture that it even has its own glossary of terms. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has published a list of soil health terminology, which includes things like “aggregate stability,” “soil respiration” and a tool called an amoozemeter. In addition to the amoozemeter, which measures […] Read more
Tag Archives Soil — page 3
Soil pit demonstrates soil history and health
LANGHAM, Sask. — In a four-foot-deep soil pit, geological history is clearly defined. The layers tell the story of how, 10,000 years ago, glacial movement pulled clay, silt, salt and lime across the Prairies. They display the very reason for the landscape’s agricultural productivity and fertility. “All of the soils here in the Prairies are […] Read more
KAP to pursue soil health roundtable
Keystone Agricultural Producers is looking for other commodity group partners on the conservation-based initiative
Glacier FarmMedia – Keystone Agricultural Producers plans to establish a soil health roundtable, encouraged by the recent release of a Senate report on the health of Canadian soils. The report, “Critical Ground: Why Soil is Essential to Canada’s Economic, Environmental, Human and Social Health” was released by the Senate’s agriculture and forestry committee in June. […] Read more
Irrigation must take soil needs into account: specialist
Len Hingley, an irrigation specialist with Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation, urges irrigators to consider proper rates based on soil media. “Rate is the amount of water that we apply at or below the infiltration rate of our soils, and it is driven by texture,” he said. Sand tops the list of soil particle sizes at […] Read more
Firms focus on soil health
UFA Co-operative Ltd. and MyLand have entered a three-year collaboration on a commercial pilot with Alberta growers. The initiative will integrate MyLand’s proprietary technology and Soil as a Service to enhance the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the soil. This integration aims to result in enhanced soil fertility, optimized crop yields and the promotion […] Read more
Senate soil report supports valued asset
Quick, what one thing is essential to any farming operation? If you had to think for a minute to come up with soil, it’s understandable. Land, or more specifically soil, is much like water for a fish or air for land animals. We are oblivious to its presence until it is gone or degraded. This […] Read more
Senate urges soil strategy
The two-year study of Canada's soils is now complete and recognizes that while conservation efforts over recent decades have been tremendous there is still more to be done
UPDATED: Tuesday June 13, 2024 – 1500 CST – to include comments from government and industry officials. REGINA — Canada requires a long-term overarching soil conservation and protection strategy, a Senate committee says. The committee on agriculture and forestry released its report on the state of the nation’s soil last week after two years of […] Read more
Microbiome revolution proposed
WINNIPEG — The hyperbole around biologicals and what they can do for crop production sounds like 10 million crickets in a suburban backyard. There’s a lot of noise around biologicals, and for good reason. Soil contains millions of bacteria, fungi and other microbes that perform vital functions for plants. As a result, global agri-science firms […] Read more
Farmers make big soil health strides
Data from Statistics Canada and Agriculture Canada highlight the positive changes made in agriculture since the 1980s
WINNIPEG — For much of the last five years, the federal government has been setting targets for Canadian farmers to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer and methane emissions from cattle. The government has provided funding to help producers cut methane and nitrous oxide emissions from primary agriculture, while constantly beating the drumbeat of emissions, […] Read more
Soil’s complexity must be understood
It all starts with the soil. To the naked eye, it may appear to simply be dead dirt. But that dirt is actually a thin skin on our planet that is very much alive; a complex ecosystem full of organisms that grow our food. These diverse soil organisms are the original farmers of our world […] Read more
