University News for July 23, 2010

Manitoba has officially adopted Newdale Soil as its provincial soil.

Newdale Soil was passed through the Legislature and received Royal Assent last month as representing the productive soils that support Manitoba agriculture and the provincial economy.

Dr. Brian Amiro, the head of the University of Manitoba's Department of Soil Science and the past president of the Manitoba Soil Science Society, says Newdale Soil is a good representation of what we refer to as the Black Chernozem soils.

Clip-Dr. Brian Amiro-University of Manitoba:
These are soils that have developed under grasslands over centuries in Manitoba.

Manitoba has more of these Black Chernozem soils than any other province in Canada.

In soil classification we move from a really big classification like Chernozems down to Black Chernozems down through different categories and when we look at representing a provincial soil we go down to something called the soil series.

Our soil series is a classification that is quite specific.

It really reflects how that soil evolved on the landscape within that bigger category we have, these Black Chernozems.

We call it Newdale Soil because our soil series are usually named after a town, a town that would probably have that soil in that area so Newdale, Manitoba is what it's named after.

When we look at soil series, over a very large field we could have different soil series occurring where Newdale would be probably one part of that soil series in that area so it's something that's reasonably widespread through the western part of the province.

Dr. Amiro notes in Canada, provincial soils have been proclaimed in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, with soils already designated for Alberta, Quebec, and British Columbia and in the United States, every state has a designated soil.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

*University News is a presentation of the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Agricultural & Food Sciences