Soils are necessary for global food production and security and contribute to a large range of ecological and economic ecosystem services. Soils are known to have degraded for various reason, the focus of this research project being the intensification of agriculture, poor soil management practices and the movement of food production into poor quality marginal lands. The increasing demand on soils to provide higher function at lower cost demonstrates the need for sustainable solutions and proper resource management. The current shift in agriculture is towards sustainable intensification and resiliency, where inputs are minimized, and production is sustained or increased to ensure lower risk as climate changes and extreme climatic events intensify. Sustainable intensification on cropping systems depends on proper management, restoration and enhancement of soil quality. A new solution to create resiliency in agricultural systems is to remediate and reclaim low producing areas to construct highly productive perennial ecosystems, such as native prairie grasslands, that provide multiple services with little to no input. In collaboration with Alternative Land Use Services Canada (ALUS Canada) I am exploring broad core questions such as:
- To what extent does age, depth and cover type affect the soil carbon potential of marginally restored prairie grasslands compared to a multitude of adjacent conventionally farmed cropping systems and woodlots?
- How does the dynamic cycling of soil carbon on marginally restored grasslands compare to the cycling of conventionally cultivated cropping systems and woodlots?
- At what spatial and temporal scale are differences in soil carbon storage observed, and how can local efforts scale up to a global extent?
To answer these questions, soils on a gradient of farms across Southern Ontario with varying degrees of management intensity and prairie ages were sampled down to 60 cm in the summer of 2017.
Results/Conclusions
Preliminary results to date suggest that these restored grasslands increase organic matter by approximately 50% over a 10-year period. Management of these grasslands presents a unique win-win strategy, in which agricultural intensification can grow sustainably without the loss of environmental resiliency.