Improving Soil Health: OAC Celebrates World Soil Day

The Soil Health Interpretive Centre (SHIC) is a state-of-the-art soil health monitoring station at the Ontario Crops Research Centre* in Elora, Ontario. Led by OAC faculty, the SHIC looks into how to improve soil health and better understand the agronomic benefits and ecosystem services provided by healthy soils. The station uses a vacuum pump to extract soil water through porous ceramic cups and analyzed for nutrients. Research has shown that including cover crops can reduce nitrate (NO3) leaching out of the root zone by 70%. Including cover crops not only keeps valuable nutrients in the soil but also protects drinking water.

Visit Soils At Guelph’s website for case studies and factsheets about the value of soil health in our agri-food systems.

Dr. Van Eerd’s internationally-recognized research program focuses on enhancing our understanding of carbon and nitrogen cycling in agricultural soils. She is interested in how soil management practices impact primary productivity and the environment. She aims to find solutions for farmers to improve their soil’s sustainability by shedding light on the importance of cover crops and its link to primary productivity and resiliency. Her work aims to enhance nitrogen use efficiency while mitigating edge-of-field losses. In 2023, Dr. Van Eerd was recognized as Fellow of the Canadian Society of Agronomy and in 2020 as one of six Influential Women of Canadian Agriculture.

Last month, OAC PhD candidate Sevendeep Kaur received the first prize in the Nutrient Management & Soil and Plant Analysis category at the recent Soil Science of America Conference in St. Louis. In doing so, Kaur advances to compete and represent her category at the SSSA Society-wide competition. Kaur’s research explores how new technologies can be used to predict organic nitrogen mineralization potential in soils. Kaur’s research is funded in part by the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance, a collaboration between the Government of Ontario and U of G.

Click here to read more about the research that won Kaur the award.

Dr. Dunfield’s research program explores the relationship between genetic diversity of soil microbial communities and soil ecosystem functioning. She works collaboratively with various research group across campus to assess how agricultural and environmental practices impact soil microbial communities, and microbially mediated soil processes, such as nutrient cycling and greenhouse gas emissions.