The designation brings Ontario into a global movement and
has been announced by Ontario Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal just before World
Soil Day on Saturday and as part of the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization’s designation of this year as International Year of Soils.
In 1914, the Ontario Soil Survey - the
first in Canada - was launched. By 1923, the Ontario Agricultural College (OAC)
and the Ontario Department of Agriculture published the "Preliminary Soil
Survey of Southwestern Ontario."
The first soil series described in this
benchmark document was called the Guelph Series.
It is made up of loams, sandy loams and silt loams
identified on more than 70,000 hectares in Brant, Dufferin, Oxford, Perth,
Lambton and Wellington, Waterloo, Halton and the City of Hamilton.
There are almost 300
soil series in Ontario.
Seven other provinces -
Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Alberta and
British Columbia - have designated a provincial soil.
Alan
Kruszel, president of the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association, said “designating
a provincial soil during the International Year of Soils is a great way to
raise awareness of the importance of soil to all Ontarians.
“Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association has had a lot
of support in bringing this proposal forward and we are very happy to have been
able to work with the Ministry to designate the Guelph Soil Series as Ontario’s
Provincial Soil.”
Soil Series classifies soils by characteristics
such as the number of horizons (or levels), color, thickness, texture, erosion
phase, slope, organic content, and depth to bedrock.
