Soil biological processes research truly a team effort

Source: Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food

The University of Saskatchewan Department of Soil Sciences research chair for Soil Biological Processes, funded by Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food (SAF), differs from most other SAF research chairs: it is occupied by two people.

Doctors Richard Farrell and Diane Knight are both soil biology specialists by training and experience. They are “job sharing” the research chair position.

“We overlap on projects that we do together, but we have separate projects as well,” Dr. Farrell said. “Our background and interests split along certain lines, and we just follow those.”

Their collaboration doesn’t end there, though. It extends to home and family, as the Ph.D soil scientists are also husband and wife.

They met at the U of S when Farrell, a native of Rhode Island, came to the university for post-doctoral studies. After a brief sojourn back to the U.S., they returned to Dr. Knight’s home, Saskatchewan, to raise a family.

The mandate assigned to their SAF chair position is to conduct research on the soil-plant relationship, focusing on biological processes and inputs that will enhance environmental and economic sustainability of soil resources.

One of their projects that is in the final stages of reporting involves “phyto-remediation” of old gas flare pits on oil and gas drilling sites in Saskatchewan.

“It’s an effort to develop and understand the agronomy of getting plants to grow in contaminated land, to actually reduce the contamination and restore the soil to an agriculturally-useful endpoint,” Dr. Farrell said.

Their test site has been a now-closed oil well near Carlyle. Prior to environmental regulation, flare pits not only burned off excess gas at ground level, but were also used as oil and chemical dumping grounds.

Dr. Farrell’s work starts after contaminated topsoil is removed, and various grasses are planted to bring the remaining soil back to life.

“The producer whose field (the Carlyle site) sits in said he never thought he’d see anything green grow in it again,” he said. “Today, that site is covered in healthy grasses, and the owner, Talisman Energy, is using it as a demonstration for staff.”

Environment Canada estimates there may be 100,000 such sites in Saskatchewan and Alberta, each of which is two to four acres in size, meaning a great deal of land can be reclaimed for production.

Doctors Farrell and Knight have also reported on greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the use of nitrogen fertilizer. It is known that some percentage of the fertilizer returns to the atmosphere as nitrous oxide, one of the greenhouse gases. However, their work indicates that conventional standards applied to the gas emission were developed in U.S. farming areas that are much higher in moisture and use much heavier fertilizer application than is typical on the prairies.

“We were always arguing that the results weren’t really applicable to Saskatchewan, nor to the prairies in general,” said Dr. Farrell.

Indeed, their research has found that the gas released from Saskatchewan fields is only about half the amount commonly found in the American studies, which will impact on any future federal standards developed for these emissions.

Looking ahead, the Soil Biological Processes program will be continuing its work on organic farming systems, use of inoculants to increase nutrient cycling in alfalfa, and the impact of changing no-till land to intermittent till.

For more information, contact:

Dr. Richard Farrell, SAF Research Co-chair, Soil Biological Processes
University of Saskatchewan
Phone: (306) 966-2772

Dr. Diane Knight, SAF Research Co-chair, Soil Biological Processes
University of Saskatchewan
Phone: (306) 966-2703