Melissa Arcand

I started my MSc program at the University of Guelph in September 2005 under the supervision of Paul Voroney and Derek Lynch.

I grew up on a farm on the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. Unfortunately, like many people fresh out of high school and from small town Saskatchewan, I left the province and went to the University of Guelph in pursuit of an environmental science degree. At that time I had no intention of working in agriculture. However, two years of working as a soil research assistant, some pivotal courses in organic agriculture and agrogeology and two summers of WWOOFing in British Columbia revived my interest and brought me back to my roots. Since then I have become particularly interested in soils and nutrient management with respect to organic agriculture.

Currently I’m conducting a field study on the effectiveness of various phosphate rocks in organic soils in Ontario in an attempt to address the issue of deficiencies in plant-available phosphorus that have been found both in Ontario and other parts of Canada. Specifically, I’ve been examining the use of buckwheat as a “phyto-extractor” of phosphorus from the phosphate rocks through rhizosphere acidification. If buckwheat can harness phosphorus from phosphate rocks, then this crop has the potential to supply phosphorus to subsequent crops through decomposition and mineralization of the plant tissue phosphorus.

E-mail:marcand@uoguelph.ca

See Melissa's poster presentation for the Canadian Society of Soil Science (CSSS), entitled, "Phyto-Extraction of Phosphate Rocks in Organically Managed Soils" (PDF version)