Measuring Soil Productivity: Where Have We Been and Where Are We Heading?

Nicole Rabe (Land Resource Specialist) Environmental Management Branch (OMAFRA) November 23, 2017 Agenda • Components of Soil Health • 4W’s of provincial soil map renewal initiatives • Precision ag data on farm & opportunities for site-specific soil health sampling & remediation • Summary Case Study: Linking soil health, mapping to crop productivity

Soil Health

Physical

Chemical Biological Soil Function, Properties & Health

Soil Compaction %OM Texture Flora and fauna Aggregate Macro/micro Stability PMN

pH Mineral compounds Nutrient level Why are we renewing soil maps in ?

Making 21st Century decisions with mid-20th Century information

Maps generated over 80 year period. Many have never had any updates or revision 5 Who is doing soil map renewal in Ontario? • Collaborative effort – AAFC (Xiaoyuan Geng) – U of G (Asim Biswas) – OMAFRA • Projects – Lake Erie watershed – Grand River watershed – GLASI Priority Sub-watersheds – – • Techniques (using R): – cLHS – Optimization – Predictive modelling – Polygon disaggregation 6

Physical Where are we renewing soil maps in the near term?

• Ottawa Urban Fringe • Peterborough County

• Cochrane – Hearst • Temiskaming Shores 7 • GRCA • Greater

What were the legacy conventions of soil mapping? Clay Example: Soils of the Ottawa Area Loam Sand • Legacy maps were over designed for hard copy readability (e.g. Clay 1”=1mile) Shallow • Conventions were digitized and transcribed into GIS • Now found in an Clay interactive map viewer - Ag Info Atlas: Glacial Till ontario.ca/agmaps

Drumlins 8 What are the current day technologies used in soil map Physical renewal?

2 yr LiDAR project • 3 planned capture areas ~ 30,000 sq km • leaf off: fall 2016 and spring 2017 • Open data • Detailed DEM products

9 OMAFRA Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) Projects

• Ottawa Soil Survey Project Ottawa – Phase 1 – Urban Fringe: 855 sq. km (85,500 ha) – Phase 2 – Ottawa-Carleton: 1,381 sq. km (138,100 ha) – Ottawa West Pilot: 44 sq. km (4,435 ha) – Ottawa East Pilot: 38 sq. km (3,822 ha) Peterborough

• Peterborough Soil Survey Project – 4,211 sq. km (421,100 ha) 6 km – Keene Pilot Area: 120 sq. km (12,000 ha) – South Monaghan Pilot Area: 110 sq. km (11,000 Digital ha) Elevation Model (DEM)

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10km Physical Topographic Derivatives: Slope Peterborough Ottawa

6 km

10km 11

Physical Topographic Derivatives: Topographic Wetness Index Peterborough Ottawa

6 km

10km 12

Covariates: Surficial Geology Physical Peterborough Ottawa

6 km

10km 13

Physical Covariates - Thorium Ottawa Peterborough

6 km

10 km 14

Site Selection

• Conditioned Latin Hypercube (cLHS) • Landscape variability-based • Uses all inputs – LiDAR – Radiometrics – Environmental

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Optimal # of Site Inspections Peterborough (left) Ottawa (right)

• Optimal number of sites = 525 • Optimal at CV = 0.95

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Horizons Physical Chemical Ap horizon – Plow layer – High in organic matter

Ae horizon – Eluviated (bleached) – Lost iron, clay

Bg horizon – Mottles (gleyed, waterlogged)

Ckg horizon – C(k)arbonates, mottles 17 Provincial to field scale…

18 Field Scale: Soil Health Testing New

Physical

Chemical Biological

19 Wellington County (74ac)

Woodrill Farms : Rainbarrel Soil Health Score (OM x Soil Type – Soil Map) 0 20 25 1 2 3 4

27 9 years of yield Beginning of a predictive digital soil map…..joining layers data in the index Proxy to soil texture = electrical conductivity (proxy to soil tecture)

Red = low EC 0-5ms/m Lighter soil / sand Bue = high EC 5-25 ms/m Silts >> loam

Courtesy Doug Aspinall (Woodrill Farms) Blues: convex, depressional, high yield Oranges: concave, ridge, low yield 3D Yellows: low yield, level to depression Greens: high yield, nearly level, gentle slope Soil Health & Crop Productivity • Moved sites to be more representative of soil types in 2017 – re-sampled 5 sites • Corn yield in a DRY 2016 growing season

Sample ID Soil Type Texture SH Score 2016 Corn Yield 16WRF1 Tuscola Silt Loam 82 208.6 16WRF2 Grandby Sandy Loam 90 84.0 16WRF3 Bookton Sandy Loam 87 197.5 16WRF4 Bookton Sandy Loam 80 169.7 16WRF5 Hillsburg Fine Sandy Loam 85 197.5 16WRF6 Hillsburg Fine Sandy Loam 77 134.2 16WRF7 Fox Sandy Loam 73 57.2 17WR8a Tuscola Silt Loam 100 220.8 16WRF9 Bookton Sandy Loam 88 233.5 17WR10a Bookton Sandy Loam 93 136.8 17WR11a Rainbarrel LFS Loamy Fine Sand 83 158.9 16WRF12 Grandby Sandy Loam 75 196.1 16WRF13 Grandby Sandy Loam 84 127.5 17WR14a Teeswater Silt Loam 80 253.5 16WRF15 Fox Sandy Loam 72 77.9 Best Soil Restoration Management & Remediation Practices Economics

· Lobb research showed a 40 to 130% yield increase in dry years and 10 to 33% in wet years · 2 to 20% reduction in removal area · Overall net increase in crop production None Remediation · Cost recovered in 4 to 6 years · Farmer experience - 80% yield increase on the knoll and 10% yield decrease in the removal area

24 Future Steps: “SMART”er Sampling Topography

Slope Sample Plan

Wetness URL: ontario.ca/soils Soil Health Matters!

Comment: ontario.ca/ebr

Open Houses:

1. November 22, St. Isidore Recreation Centre, 20 de l'Arena Street, St. Isidore, ON K0C 2B0 (5-9pm) 2. November 27, Woodstock OMAFRA office, Unit 1 - 401 Lakeview Drive, Woodstock, ON. N4T 1W2 (6-9pm) 3. November 28, Chatham area (Country View Golf Course, 25393 St. Clair Road. R. R. #1. Dover Centre, ON. N0P 1L0) (1-4pm and 6-9pm) 4. December 14, Codrington Community Centre, 2992 Rd 30, Codrington, ON, K0K 1R0(3-6pm) 5. December 15, Flesherton KinPlex, 2 Highland Dr., Flesherton N0C 1E0 (3:15-5:30 pm) 26 Questions

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Comments?

Nicole Rabe (OMAFRA Land Resource Specialist) phone: (226) 979-6271 Email: [email protected] Follow us on Twitter! @ONAgEnviro 27