Assessment of Soil Quality on TSN Plots at Ellerslie and Breton Utilizing Physical, Chemical, and Biological Properties
Assess the impact of consistent management, tilled vs no-till, straw removed or not, and N application rate on soil quality using physical, chemical and biological properties at Ellerslie and Breton, AB.
IPNI-2007-CAN-AB25
30 Jan 2008
2007 Annual Interpretive Summary
Assessment of Soil Quality on Tillage-Straw-Nitrogen (TSN) Plots at Ellerslie and Breton Utilizing Physical, Chemical, and Biological Properties, 2007
The Tillage-Straw-Nitrogen (TSN) plots were originally set up at the Ellerslie and Breton research sites in 1979. These plots have been in consistent management under different experimental treatments for 28 years. The tillage treatments include tillage and no-tillage; the straw treatments include no straw (i.e., straw was removed and not returned to the plots) and straw (i.e., straw returned to the plots); N fertilizer was applied at rates of 0, 50, or 100 kg/ha. Much information has been gathered over the length of the research project about aboveground productivity and changes in some soil characteristics. This research initiative is designed to gather detailed chemical, physical, and biological information to assess the effect of long-term management practices on soil quality characteristics. Soil samples from experimental treatments were collected in the early fall of 2007 from both research sites and laboratory analyses are on-going. AB-25