Several years ago, the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA) in cooperation with the University of Guelph established the ‘Soil Health Graduate Scholarship’. Jordan Graham, who recently enrolled in the graduate program within the School of Environment Sciences is the 2016-17 recipient of this scholarship. Jordan’s research is focused on examining the influence of herbaceous biomass crops, such as switchgrass and miscanthus on soil organic carbon (SOC) levels in soils across Ontario.
“Soil health has been identified as OSCIA’s number one research priority”, says Gord Green,President of the OSCIA. “Where soil conditions allow for an increase in organic matter, the carbon sequestration is a positive effect against climate change, and OSCIA is please to be a partner in this important work”.
Graham has always been interested in the outdoors and the environment, which lead him to pursue an undergraduate degree at U. of G. in environmental science.
“It was the work on the processing of biomass crops as a summer student in 2014, initially at the Kemptville campus, then continuing agronomic work related to yield and nutrient cycling in 2015 that got me interested in the topic of biomass and renewable energy”, says Graham. Dr. Paul Voroney and Dr. Naresh Thevathasan are his research advisors. Additional partners in this research are the Ontario Biomass Producers’ Coop and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
Hailing from the town of Ingleside on the St. Lawrence river, Graham is an avid fisherman and works as a volunteer restoration coordinator to rehabilitate brook trout habitat on a section of the upper Credit River.
Source: OntarioSoilcrop