Research
Extension
Courses
Consumers
--------------------------
Virtual
Farm Tours Student
& Job Opportunities News
Articles Links
Standards
--------------------------
Market
Information Events
Issues
Animal Welfare Strategic
Plans --------------------------
Award-winners
Kids
Stuff Rural
Culture Discussion
Forum Classified
Ads Weather
Site Map
New NSERC-funded project to examine relationship between soil properties
and forage legume productivity and function (N2 fixation) on organic
dairy farms
A new three year (2007-2010) research project to commence this fall and funded through Organic Meadow Inc., Guelph, Ontario and the NSERC Collaborative Research and Development (CRD) program will examine the relationships between forage productivity, legume fixed nitrogen and soil properties on organic dairy farms in Ontario and Nova Scotia and test approaches to overcome potential soil limitations to legume N2 fixation.
Led by Dr. Derek Lynch, Canada Research Chair in Organic Agriculture at Nova Scotia Agricultural College (NSAC), project collaborators also include the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada (OACC) at NSAC and the University of Guelph.
The project will be coordinated by research associate Shelly Juurlink, MSc who is based at OACC. Previous studies of certified organic dairy farms in Ontario over the past three years demonstrated just how reliant these systems are on legume symbiotic N2 fixation to sustain both forage quality and productivity. Most of the farms also had relatively low farm nutrient inputs, particularly P, compared to what was exported in milk, and when compared with farm nutrient loading characteristic of more intensive confinement based dairy operations.
This project provides a great opportunity to follow up on that work by examining more closely this fundamental aspect of the sustainability of organic systems…the reliance on legume symbiotic N2 fixation. It will enable researchers on the one hand to conduct the fundamental plant physiology studies of how the distinctive soil properties on these farms, including soil P levels, affect the development and functioning of the belowground legume root-rhizobia-mycorrhizae tripartite symbiosis, while at the same time provide participating farms with relevant data on how their soil management relates to the botanical composition, quality and productivity of the forage on their farm.
Posted September 2007