Ontario Soil Management Committee

Table of Contents

Mandate and 5 Year Themes
Membership
Terms of Reference
How to Submit New Recommendations or Updates
Data Requirements to Change Recommendations
For More Information

Mandate

  • The Ontario Soil Management Committee (OSMC) shall review and approve all soil management recommendations brought before the committee to ensure they encourage practices most likely to deliver improvements in the agronomic, environmental, and economic performance of agriculture, and provide the recommendations to be included in OMAFA crop production guides and other resource material.
  • In the course of the above, the OSMC will identify research needs in those areas and share this information with key research funding agencies including but not limited to OMAFA, VRIC, GFO, etc.
  • The OSMC will support the communication of recommendations.

5 Year Themes

In particular, the OSMC will concentrate on the following broad themes over the next five years:

  1. Strengthening 4R practices and knowledge
  2. Integrating and increasing knowledge regarding production economics and environmental impact
  3. Soil conservation practices
  4. Integrating all inputs into recommendation, such as manure, compost, and other organic amendments

Membership

Membership of the OSMC is comprised of members drawn from government, the research community, and representatives from industry and farm organizations (with equal representation). Individuals should have some level of expertise in soil management, soil fertility, and/or nutrient management.

Elected Positions

John Lauzon – Chair
Marty Vermey – Vice-Chair
Colin Elgie (OMAFA) – Secretary

Working Groups

Working Groups report to the OSMC parent committee, and are assigned with specific responsibilities, either on an ad hoc or permanent basis.
Ad hoc Working Groups are put together to discuss proposed recommendation changes, with expertise in the group according to the scope of the research to be reviewed.

Permanent Working Groups include:

  • Soil Laboratory Working Group – oversees the OMAFA Soil Laboratory Accreditation program
  • Communications Working Group – advises the parent committee on supporting activities to communicate the OSMC, its purpose, and updated recommendations

Terms of Reference

OSMC-Terms-of-ReferenceDownload

How to Submit New Recommendations or Updates

What needs to be approved?

Any changes (adding, deleting, increasing, or decreasing) to:

  1. Crop nutrient recommendations, including commercial fertilizers and organic amendments
  2. Soil pH or liming recommendations
  3. Sampling procedure in soil or plant tissue analysis
  4. Soil management recommendations, not covered by other committees

What does not need to be approved?

  1. Changes to Ontario Nutrient Management regulations.
  2. Editorial changes and wordsmithing.

Submittal timeline:

December – January

A request for any changes in fertilizer recommendations to OMAFA publications is distributed by the OSMC secretary to researchers.  If you want to submit a change, you must provide the wording of the recommendation change and as much supporting research data as possible.  Ontario data and supporting research from outside of Ontario is ideal.  Changes are to be submitted to the OSMC secretary; they must be submitted before January 31.

February

The OSMC secretary passes along change requests to the appropriate OMAFA lead to put together a working group.

March

The working group meets to discuss proposed changes to recommendations.  They are either approved and sent to the parent committee for approval, or more data may be requested from the researcher(s).  If more data is required, the working group can choose to meet again, or converse via email/other sources until the necessary data is obtained.

April

Proposed recommendation changes and accompanying data to be submitted to the OSMC secretary at least 6 weeks prior to the parent committee meeting.

June

All changes to fertilizer recommendations must be approved by the OSMC parent committee.  The researcher is asked to give a short presentation of the recommendation to be changed, and the parent committee will discuss and vote for approval.  If approved, the OSMC secretary will copy the publication editor.  If more support is needed, the researcher or publication editor will be contacted.

Submittal process:

Data Requirements to Change Recommendations

Due to the wide variety of crops managed in Ontario, and the soil management recommendations that may be covered by this committee, it’s difficult to define exact requirements for every individual research project. The document below is intended to provide guidance for data requirements for changes to nutrient recommendations. Other types of soil management recommendations may have similar but not exact requirements.

It is recommended that researchers read through the guidelines here, as well as communicate with the OSMC in order to give guidance for data requirements in order to update recommendations. It is not the intent of the OSMC to portray this as a barrier to research, but rather as assistance to ensure that outcomes like updating provincial recommendations are able to be met.

OSMC-Soil-Recommendation-Data-RequirementsDownload

For More Information

Please contact Colin Elgie, OSMC Secretary for more information.

For media inquiries, please contact Danny Jefferies, OSMC Communication Working Group chair, or Colin Elgie, OSMC Secretary.