Ontario has a new official soil

Monday, November 30, 2015

by SUSAN MANN

The province’s designation of an official soil helps raise Ontarians’ awareness about the importance of soils, says Alan Kruszel, president of the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association.

On Monday, provincial Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal designated the Guelph soil series as Ontario’s official soil. The designation was made to commemorate the soil’s important role and historical significance to the Ontario agri-food industry’s development, according to the ministry’s Nov. 30 press release.

Kruszel says the association helped the ministry “figure out which soil should be the one to be chosen.”

There are almost 300 soil series in Ontario. Soil series is one of the ways soils are classified.

The Guelph soil series is one of the most productive agricultural soils in Ontario, the release says. It’s found on the rolling hills across Wellington County and the surrounding regions. More than 173,000 acres of Guelph soils have been mapped across Wellington, Brant, Dufferin, Oxford, Perth and Lambton counties, Waterloo and Halton regions and the city of Hamilton.

The soil’s texture ranges from loam, to sandy loam to silt loam and it typically has few stones. It’s well drained but capable of retaining enough moisture for crop production.
Kruszel says the Guelph soil series is “an excellent soil with good fertility and supports the growth of a variety of crops. It’s a perfect choice” to be named the official soil.  

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations declared this year as the International Year of Soils and Dec. 5 is World Soil Day. BF