Organic Soil Amendments
Project Lead
Sean Smukler, Associate Professor, Department of Applied Biology and Soil Science, Sustainable Agriculture Landscapes Lab, Faculty of Land and Food Systems (PI)
Funding
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
About the Project
Focusing on optimal nutrient management, this project, by Dr. Sean Smukler and Dr. Gabriel Maltais-Landry, looks into crop optimization – using organic amendments and cover crops to maximize yields. The project focuses on organic amendments such as horse manure, chicken manure, municipal compost, and specialty products. From experimenting at the UBC Farm, Maltais-Landry has established several trade-offs among crop productivity – highlighting inherent challenges in balancing Nitrogen and Phosphorus while maintaining high yields when using organic amendments and cover crops as primary sources of fertility in intensive farming systems.
External Links and Publications
Good Soil Good Humans: Growing Science
Maltais-Landry, G., Neufeld, K., Poon, D., Grant, N., Nesic, Z. & Smukler, S. (2018) Protection from wintertime rainfall reduces nutrient losses and greenhouse gas emissions during the decomposition of poultry and horse manure-based amendments. Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association. 68(4), 377-388, DOI: 10.1080/10962247.2017.1409294