Eat less beef … save the planet! It’s a common theme on social media and among celebrities. Yet, researchers at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) are working to show that beef cattle in Western Canada shouldn’t take the rap for climate change.
Author of the article: Submitted
Publishing date: May 19, 2021 • 4 hours ago • 3 minute read •
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Dr. Jeff Schoenau isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. He owns and operates a grain farm near Central Butte, Saskatchewan and has been working as a soil scientist for the University of Saskatchewan (USask) for 33 years.
In a paper published today in the Canadian Journal of Soil Science, PhD student Noabur Rahman, Schoenau and colleagues Drs. Derek Peak and Ryan Hangs collected and analyzed soil from across the prairies including samples from Schoenau’s own farm.
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The study, which offers recommendations for improving fertilizer use and increasing crop yields for farmers, builds on previous studies Schoenau and Peak have completed as collaborators at Canadian Light Source (CLS) at USask. Schoenau considers some of their work done on the HXMA and VLS-PGM beamlines at the CLS to be ground-breaking. “There are not a lot of folks that have used these techniques to study the fate of some of these nutrient elements in the soil environment as applied in the field,” said Schoenau. Using chemical analysis and synchrotron techniques, the team looked at soil micronutrients in soil samples from Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba.