Project

BioSoil North

In search of food security in the boreal regions of Canada land use conversion (LUC) is used to expand agriculture into boreal forests or natural lands. LUC is strongly supported through regional policies. This disturbs and removes the topsoil rich in organic matter. The resulting farmland is of very low fertility and requires intensive management to increase and maintain its carbon stores and enhance soil health to facilitate sustainable productivity. Organic amendments commonly employed or of interest to the local farmers are of sources that are geographically and seasonally variable in type, quality and quantity. Their stability or mineralization rates, including any priming effects, vary as a function of the soil properties, pre-processing protocols and crop types. Associated greenhouse gasses (GHG) emission profiles are unknown. Preliminary evidence suggests both enhanced sequestration and priming effects. Newfoundland and Labrador is a prime example of dispersed communities with distinct access to organic wastes that are employed to improve soil fertility. We propose to develop an evidence base decision support system that informs on best on-land organic waste utilization practices to facilitate productivity while mitigating GHG emissions. We will compare the utility of locally relevant wastes, the utility of distinct composting options (including classic windrow-type and vermicomposting) for reducing GHG emissions and increasing C sequestration. A whole system analysis approach will be used to identify (a) options for optimization of locally relevant waste streams applied to field or used in greenhouse conditions, (b) GHGs emissions for the differently managed agricultural fields (soil management and cropping system) in selected boreal ecoregions, (c) the relationship between productivity and soil carbon pools in the context of GHG emission potential. The work is carried out on working farms in the boreal regions and involves controlled conditions and field experiments including seasonal considerations. Students and postdoctoral fellows will be trained in agriculture, carbon and GHG sciences, and work with farmers in the local communities, government agricultural agents, and national and international advisers.

The project is a collaboration between the Memorial University of Newfoundland (Prof. Adrian Unc) and University of Waterloo (Prof. Maren Oelbermann), and funded through NSERC-Alliance with contributions from the listed collaborators.

Collaborators

Taiga Valley Farm Inc. (Brian Davis); Natures Best Farm (Desmond Sellars); Birch Lane Farm (Jim Purdy and Marge Goudie); NunaKatiget Inuit Community Corporation Inc. (Patricia Kemuksigak); G&M Family Farm Inc. (Gerard Smith); Harbour Main-Chapel’s Cove-Lakeview

Research Sites

Nature’s Best, 53.319379, -60.240156

Birch Lane, 53.318844, -60.213698

Taiga Valley, 53.402786, -60.406076

G&M farm, 47.255970, -53.984974

Harbour Main-Chapel’s Cove-Lakeview, 47.450205, -53.161628

Research activities

Research Team Members

Memorial University of Newfoundland

  1. Professor Adrian Unc (PI)
  2. Maxwell Derek Locke (PhD student)
  3. Sanuja Kalirasa (MSc student)
  4. Ethan William Garnier (MSc student)
  5. Amana Jemal Kedir (PDF and PM)

University of Waterloo

  1. Professor Maren Oelbermann (PI)
  2. Aman Dhnisa (MSc student)
  3. Akintayo Afolabi (PhD student)

Research questions

  • Does the addition of locally relevant organic fertilizers with variable quality to a sandy Podzolic soil impact the stability of existing and newly formed soil organic carbon, and are these effects detectable below the plough layer? Do these responses differ under contrasting field histories? Particularly, do any of the tested practices favour the formation of stable mineral-associated organic carbon over the more vulnerable particulate organic carbon? (read more here)
  • The establishment of endophytes in converted lands: to what extent the natural AMF community might be selected and participate in the AMF community of farmlands post-conversion; to what extent the seed imported AMF’s establish themselves in the new soils; how is AMF selection and establishment faceted by the fertilizer and amendment management
  • Impact of the fertilizer management and the conversion status on the nutrient use efficiency and crop productivity. How does the application of specific soil amendments influence the soil’s overall nutrient dynamics? How do these responses differ across different amendments and their combinations? How do interactions between various amendments and plant types influence nutrient dynamics and the activity of the microbial community in the rhizosphere soil, and which combinations are most effective in promoting nutrient budget and plant growth and maximizing crop yield? Impact of different organic waste amendments on the carbon budget after application to soil?
  • Fertility, carbon budget and sequestration affected by use of composted and non-composted local organic wastes
  • Impact of the conversion history and the tested fertility management options on the GHG budget
  • Phosphorus dynamics in the sandy Podzolic soils with the contrasting management history: P adsorption (incubation with and without plant), P availability test using 1% citric acid, Olsen, Mehlich-3, and water extraction techniques and analyzed with ICP-OES; total and organic P quantification.

2023:

Research activities with images to be described here, generally w links to research sites, news etc

2024:

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2025:

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Hugh C. Morris Experiential Fellowship (Kimberley Foundation)

The Hugh C. Morris Experiential Fellowship sends a student away from the complacency of their home institution (classroom and laboratory) to study at a variety of relevant locations with partners so as to broaden and expand their experiential knowledge and make them innovative and well-rounded scientists. The 2020 Fellowship was awarded to Jeremiah D. Vallotton, who proposed a global trip to nine countries to allow him to experience global science and agriculture in boreal/alpine landscapes.


Justification:

Globally, boreal forests contain over one-third of global soil carbon, mixed with the largest tracts of wetland soils (themselves >30% pure carbon).  However, this zone is understudied and taken for granted compared to smaller contributors such as rainforests. Even within the northern region much attention is paid to the far north permafrost, while the impact of climate change and management at the critical interfaces between the northern temperate and the boreal regions is rarely fully explored. As the Temperate-Boreal Ecotone (TBE) shifts northward, ecosystems will shift and agriculture will follow, which will result in accelerated conversion of natural lands to agricultural uses, also accelerating carbon loss. However, we know very little about carbon dynamics within these soils, how much carbon is stored in stable forms, and how different climatic patterns will affect these dynamics. Using Canada as a microcosm for the world, traveling from east to west across the TBE there is a shift from cooler podzolic forest and bog land to temperate forest, to prairie, to temperate rainforest and then permafrost soils, and this high variability is true globally as well.  

It is thus vital that we understand what happens when land management changes, whether particular farming practices cause net sequestration or loss of carbon from soil, and critically, if we can manage carbon.  It is not a question of whether boreal lands will be converted to agriculture, but how.  If scientists are to be in a position to influence policy-makers, farmers, and society as a whole with sound principles and copious data on soil carbon, studying boreal carbon becomes extremely important in humanity’s adaptation to climate change globally.  By partnering with premiere institutions around the world in a variety of locations, by sharing knowledge, collaborating on experiments, and by pooling our diverse views and experiences together, we will be able to make meaningful contributions to the global effort to adapt to climate change.

Activities/Goals:

  • Review notable research from the institution (selected by collaborators) to understand their research activities, goals and philosophies prior to the visit
  • Visit research institutions, identify relevant research foci, address skill integration across the collaborators, and assess data exchange opportunities 
  • Identify local management practices and approaches to integration of production and environmental concerns
  • Identify soil qualitative parameters relevant to local practices and with an eye towards future experiments involving managed soils from farms or research plots at each location
  • Build relationships with local scientists and farmers, and arrange for future collaborations to enable completion of the global component of my PhD research.  These collaborations will be variable, as relevant for each location, and will involve partner sampling of soils at visited farm and research sites from the ELP; partners carrying out relevant soil analyses on the soils; and sending sample aliquots to Newfoundland for my analysis as part of my PhD program

Field sampling and testing

Samples were taken on a gradient that was felt to best represent different stages of boreal land as influenced by agriculture. Natural land (forest, sometimes prairie/steppe) to represent natural C cycling; wheat agriculture to represent fully converted/managed land; pasture (preferably grazed) to represent a more C-rich agricultural management; and abandoned (shrubs, small trees, and grass successional) to represent boreal land transitioning back towards a natural state. This allowed the samples to demonstrate how boreal C cycling changes as land is converted, managed, and abandoned without needing a chronosequence.

Sites and collaborators:

Nine initial locations (UK, Ireland, Finland, Switzerland, Mongolia, New Zealand, Alaska USA, Saskatchewan Canada, and Quebec Canada) were selected for visitation; along the way, further collaborations were established in Sweden and Japan. Collaborators included below:

List of collaborators for this project
Map of sampling locations for Vallotton ELP, 2022

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Labrador (the mainland portion of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador) is a sparsely populated but actively growing region of Canada. Like Yukon and northern Ontario, Labrador offers a snapshot into the rapid expansion of small-scale farming into virgin boreal landscapes that have not historically been farmed or even capable of agriculture. Like the aforementioned regions of Canada, agriculture in Happy Valley-Goose Bay (HV-GB) is relatively new, only being established aggressively within the past 10-20 years.

HV-GB is located close to the mouth of the Churchill River, with multiple other rivers crossing this landscape as they flow towards Lake Melville. The soils of HV-GB are of very recent origin, being alluvial deposits following glacial removal of soil at the end of the last ice age.

Pye Farm itself is located on leased Crown land in the floodplain of the Churchill River within approximately 50 metres of the river itself, but according to a local geologist at the Labrador Institute, the land of Pye Farm used to be the riverbed itself some thousands of years ago (and therefore has a high proportion of sand). The farm, like most local farms, was cleared from virgin land with no history of farming; it has a mixture of short trees (mainly larch with spruce and birch) and bog. The water table is very high (within <1 metre of surface, and was higher still until the government installed a drainage ditch per another farmer’s request), but became lower moving from north (bog) to south (sandy). The farm does experience regular cycles of fire as is typical for the Labrador fires, but the most recent fire was approximately in 1975 according to local government records.

The farm was managed until 2018 by he Pye Family. An interview carried out in 2019 with Mrs. Pye (the surviving partner who farmed the land of Pye Farm prior to its acquisition by MUN), which gives some useful contextualization for the soil sampling (by JD Vallotton).

Samples were collected over two weeks in a grid pattern with approximately 25-35 metre radius between sites. Each site was sampled at two depths: 0-15cm, and 15-30cm. Samples were immediately dried at 40 degC, sieved with a 2mm sieve, and sent off for processing. Soil respiration tests were carried out using the 72-hr soil burst test (JD Vallotton).

A vascular plant survey carried out by AAFC researchers in 2019 recorded 138 vascular plant species (87 native to Labrador, 51 not native to Labrador; Table 1). Of those species, 120 were established outside of cultivation and 19 were planted on the site and not sufficiently established outside of cultivation to be considered wild plants.

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Summary and results

Northern agricultural soils often have rocky conditions that impede farm operations. To facilitate better tillage, large rocks may be pulverized by a rock crusher attached to a tractor. Rock dust remaining after pulverization is mixed into the soil, and the combined impacts of pulverization disturbance and rock dust incorporation may enrich or change soil physical, chemical, and biological properties. It was hypothesised that rock pulverization would alter abiotic soil properties through increased acidity and nutrient concentrations. Measurements of soil respiration (caused by metabolism of microbes and other organisms) and the feeding habits of soil nematode communities may be used as biotic indicators of how well a soil is functioning. It was expected that changes in soil properties from pulverization and mixing of soil would increase activity of microbes responsible for soil respiration alongside nematodes that eat those microbes.

Our study found no major differences from pulverization with soil properties, soil respiration, or feeding types of nematodes, indicating that rock pulverization in northern soils has value primarily in terms of soil workability rather than improved enrichment or soil functioning.

Aside from pulverization, we found that the differences between natural and agricultural sites were far greater and significant compared to the mostly insignificant differences between pulverized and non-pulverized agricultural soils.

Variation in soil abiotic properties, particularly acidity, quantity of organic material, and nutrient concentration were essential drivers of soil functioning as indicated by soil respiration and feeding habits of soil nematode communities.

Collaborators: Smiling Land Farm

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Phosphorus Dynamics in Boreal Podzols Converted from Forest to Agriculture

Phosphorus (P) stands as a non-renewable, essential element crucial for sustaining all life forms, particularly in agriculture, where it ranks as the second most limiting nutrient after nitrogen. The dynamics of global and regional soil P pools and fluxes and the underlying biogeochemical processes exhibit considerable variation influenced by factors such as soil types, vegetation, and management practices.

Despite its significance, a notable gap exists in our understanding of phosphorus fluxes and pool dynamics within the natural and agricultural Podzols of boreal regions of Canada, impeding informed decision-making regarding optimal management strategies. To bridge this knowledge gap, this study pursued the following objectives:

(a) Examined the levels and status of phosphorus in Newfoundland (Nfld) farm soils and investigated their correlation with recommended fertilizer rates across diverse locations and management practices.

(b) Evaluated the effectiveness of different phosphorus extraction and analysis tests (P-test) in assessing phosphorus extractability in natural grassland, forested areas, and agricultural soils.

(c) Determined phosphorus adsorption isotherms for forested and agricultural soil horizons.

(d) Investigated the phosphorus adsorption capacity of soils under long-term management practices.

(e) A greenhouse trial was conducted to assess plant phosphorus uptake from soil layers relevant to areas converted from forested to agricultural use.

This comprehensive investigation aims to contribute valuable insights into phosphorus dynamics in natural and agricultural ecosystems of Nfld and other regions with similar soil and environmental factors, thereby aiding in developing more informed and effective soil management strategies.

Area of Research Interests

  • Phosphorus biogeochemistry in the natural and managed environment mainly soil, sediment and water.
  • Environmental factors (erosion, freeze-thow cycle, increase temperature and extended grow season) and agricultural managments (such as tillage, fertilizer types, cropping systems) effects on the soil phosphorus dynamic.
  • Evaluation of soil tests and analyses and nutrient recommendation protocols.
  • Organic waste managment (composting and direct utilization) for soil health enhancement, food production, and environmental protection (phosphorus and carbon sequestration).

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The aim of the Atlantic Canada nematode project is to evaluate the composition and abundance of nematode communities in NB, PEI, NS, and NL.  Relationships between nematodes community composition ecoregions, land use, and soil physicochemical properties are explored.

Nematode communities as (bio)indicators of soil quality?

  • Occur in all soils; are diverse and abundant
  • Respond quickly to management disturbance
  • Influenced by soil physical and chemical properties
  • Contribute to soil nutrient turnover (bacterial and fungal feeders)

Soil carbon stats via respiration measurements:

•What do we understand about changes in C cycling under conditions of land conversion? 

•Can different methods of managing converted land result in increases of carbon?

•How can we use this knowledge to better inform management decisions?

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Soil Amendment with Biochar for Increased Crop Productivity and Enhancement of Soil Fertility in the Sandy Soils of Labrador (led by Dr. Joinal Abedin)

(i) effect of biochar when applied singly or in combination with fishmeal and chemical fertilizers;

(ii) the effect of different application rates of biochar

iii) micronutrient supplying capacities of biochar.

iv) response of soil nematode communities to biochar amendments

Labrador field research site: Nature’s Best farm

Plant uptake based assay of nutrient stoichiometry for fish hatchery waste

Most nitrogen in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) waste in the liquid phase is found as ammonium, with negligible nitrate-N. However, the waste’s low pH, of about 5-6, likely does not favour ammonia volatilization and it is likely immediately available to plants. Salinity and heavy metal concentrations are likely not a concern. It is hypothesized that nutrients are made available to plants both in immediately available forms and during growth, via mineralization. The latter can make P plant-available after waste is added to soils; delayed availability of mineralizable N is more accurately accounted by the type of N compounds, e.g. proportion of protein, as opposed to a simple C:N ratio. One may thus employ a plant cultivation assay to elucidate the capacity of RAS waste-based mixes to effect changes in soil fertility parameters and affect nutrient use efficiency kinetics; therefore a stoichiometric assessment based on elemental balances in the plant and soil system can be employed to assess nutrient availability as reflected in plant assimilation. 

Questions:

Impact of fertiliser source on the dynamics of carbon and nutrients in a Podzol designated for land-use conversion

RAS impact of soil layers of a converted boreal soil on tall fescue biomass stoichiometry and residual soil nutrients

RAS impact of soil layers of a converted boreal soil on soil carbon storage

Results:

  • The management of a converted podzolic soils in the circumboreal regions does need to account for the initial status of the soil mixing.
  • Initial good responses to fertilization might be misleading and it does not necessarily mean that the soil can easily sustain productivity over longer term.
  • Distinct organic fertilizers did clearly behave distinctly for the two soils of arguably equivalent fertility as indicated by standard far soil tests; detailed insights into the functional status of soil microbiomes for converted podzolic soils are clearly necessary to devise management tools that can sustain long term fertility build-up and sustainability of nutrient management. 

From a practical point of view these results also raise the question of management advising. Immediate response to fertilization might be seen as a positive by farmers but this might challenge long term sustainability concerns. These questions can be only answered with long term, comprehensive agronomic experiments. 

If the purpose or function of the soil is to retain OM, then the type of fertilizer and carbon rich supplements must be tailored to the age of the land after clearing.

Tall fescue yield, total soil nitrogen (mg/100g dry soil), Olsen Extractable soil P (mg/100g dry soil), and changes in soil total carbon (Δ TC%) at the conclusion of experiment: DMN, dairy manure; MIN, mineral fertilizer; Neg, negative control; RAS, recirculating aquaculture solids; SUP, recirculating aquaculture solid tank supernatant.

Results:

Funding:

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