Soil, Water, Air and Production Systems Section

Dr. Ed Gregorich
Section Head

Develops sustainable land management practices for field crop production in eastern Ontario and western Quebec. Uses land resource databases for land use and environmental assessments to promote efficient use of agricultural resources.

The Soil, Water, Air and Production Systems Section consist of 8 study areas and maintains the National Soil Data Bases:

Agroclimatic Resource Assessment in a Changing Climate: Develop methodologies and carry out agroclimatic resources assessments for current and forecast climate scenarios to identify impacts, opportunities and adaptation strategies.

Regional Land Resource Study: Provide information, expert knowledge in pedology and interpretations of soil data to support improved allocation and sustainable use of land resources in eastern Canada. Primary activities are to :-

• Maintain and develop knowledge and understanding of Ontario land resources and to archive the information to CanSIS (Canadian Soil Information System) and NSDB (National Soil Data Base) standards.
• Develop innovative techniques to improve the quality of information and to ensure improved access to the Ontario Land Resource Data Base (LRDB).
• Develop procedures for the integration of the Ontario LRDB with other resource and socio-economic data, to create tools which will guide sustainable land use planning of rural communities. Specific research includes regional scale land evaluation and the development of planning tools to guide livestock intensification and expansion.
  

Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Management: Evaluates management practices that optimize soil microbial, carbon and nitrogen resources for sustainable production of corn, wheat and soybean.

Ecosystem Modelling: Develops, identifies and evaluates methods that link soil and water quality processes examined at particular space and time scales, to others, the purpose being to facilitate regional and/or supra-regional soil-water quality decision support systems.

Crop Adaptation to Climate and Management: Identifies physiological limitations to grain and silage corn production under low input production systems and recommends crop management practices for Eastern Canada.

Precision Agriculture: Assesses methods of measuring spatial variability of soil and crop attributes within a field, their contribution to crop production and potential as indicators of crop yield.

Land Quality Modelling:

Develops:

• methodologies and databases to assess and monitor soil quality, land cover, cropping systems, crop yields and the socioeconomic performance of agricultural production systems in Canada.
• models that integrate biophysical conditions, socioeconomic forces and production systems to assess the risk of environmental degradation and provide decision support systems for policy makers.
• procedures for assessing landscape variability and employing such measures to improve the reliability of 'scaling up' experimental results to larger regions.

Conducts spatial and statistical analyses of the relationships amongst production inputs, soil capability, farm structure, economic conditions and natural ecosystems.

Soil Taxonomy and Databases: Develops, manages and applies a comprehensive and integrated national database of soil, climate, land use, crop yield and socioeconomic information of importance to agriculture and other Canadian industries; and carries out research relating to soil taxonomy.

Resources

ECORC is the custodian of the National Soil Data Base. The unit responsible for this database, named the Canadian Soil Information System (CanSIS), works with specialists in all Canadian provinces and provides custom mapping service for its collaborators and clients and develops tools for storing, retrieving, transforming and displaying spatially referenced data.

CanSIS has national responsibility to develop, manage and integrate the National Soil Data Base with climate, land use, crop yield and socioeconomic information of importance to agriculture and clients in other industries.