Applications are now open for the 2025 Ontario Soil Network (OSN) network challenge. This year-long program is designed to help farmers, agronomists, and soil enthusiasts across Ontario improve their soil health practices, build strong networks, and make a lasting impact in their communities. The OSN Network Challenge starts January 2025, and begins with a 6-week… Read More
Tag: Ontario Soil Network
The Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA) held its annual general meeting earlier in February, setting out the executive for the coming year, and naming its Soil Champion for 2022. Leading the organization will be Eastern Ontario farmer Warren Schneckenburger, who will serve a one-year term as president. Alongside his parents Arden and Rhonda,… Read More
Organic matter plays a key role in soil health, productivity, and resiliency. But building or replenishing organic matter can take a long time and a tremendous amount of organic material. On this episode of RealAgriculture’s Soil School we visit with Nicole Penney, precision ag manager for FS Partners in Ontario. Penney notes that it takes… Read More
Larry Dyck is trying to make tough soil a little less tough. It may sound like a simple objective, but it’s been a 40 year journey for the cash cropper, who operates Campden Grain with his son Ben, near Campden on Ontario’s Niagara peninsula. Dyck, a member of the Ontario Soil Network, first started no-tilling… Read More
Members of the Ontario Soil Network are inviting complete strangers onto their farms — virtually, of course. Mel Luymes, communications and community director of the Ontario Soil Network, says that the Soil Road Trip allows farmers, researchers, or just those who are curious, to tour up to 100 fields and discover what each farmer is… Read More
It’s important to know what’s going well, and what’s not, especially with soil. Certain “canaries in the coalmine” can indicate existing, persistent problems with management practices that over time can be improved. Adam Ireland, who farms with his family near Teeswater in Bruce County, Ont., is joined by Bernard Tobin for this episode of Soil… Read More
Tori Waugh, principal consultant of Conservation Ag Consulting, steps in as executive director of the Ontario Soil Network as of early January 2021. The Ontario Soil Network is a farmer-led learning and networking organization formed to connect and support farmers across the province through training, access to research, and networking opportunities. Waugh has been involved with OSN as… Read More
Keep your soil covered, do as little tillage as possible, maintain a living root system 365 days a year, and fit it all into an economic model that makes money: this is sustainable soil health. It’s a challenge, for sure, but it’s one Dresden, Ont., farmer Woody Van Arkel is happy to tackle. On this… Read More
Mark Burnham is doing his best to promote more wheat acres in Ontario. It can be a tough sell, but there’s no disputing the soil health benefits of having wheat in the rotation. The Cobourg, Ont.- farmer, who runs a mixed farm with his family, believes a corn-soy-wheat rotation, with some hay and cover crops,… Read More
When Bloomfield, Ont. farmer Tyler Lester started planting cover crops, the goal was to help keep livestock out of pea crops to address food safety concerns raised by vegetable crop customers. With a healthy deer and wild turkey population that too often ventured into the crops, Lester and his family hatched a strategy to plant… Read More