| Summary: | The grey-wooded soils of Western Canada are becoming increasingly important due to the fact that future settlement will be largely confined to such soils. In the Peace River region today sizeable tracts of wooded soils are being brushed and broken for crop production by modern power machinery. Over the three Prairie Provinces grey-wooded soils consist well in excess of 100,000,000 acres and of the four major soil zones (brown, dark brown, black, grey-wooded) they represent by far the largest area. About two-thirds of the entire province of Alberta is made up of the grey soil zone. Vyatt (39) points out that ultimately over 50 per cent of all cropped land of this province will belong to the grey soil group. Of the surveyed area of the Peace River region 78 per cent or approximately 13,000,000 acres is of the grey-wooded or grey-transitional type. The grey-wooded soils are generally rather poor in fertility as they represent a degraded phase, the result of prolonged leaching under a forest cover. Under cultivation their scant organic matter rapidly disappears and the limited amount of available nitrogen is quickly absorbed by crop growth. Moreover, their initial poor physical condition is enhanced with puddling, washing, and blowing as the inevitable result. [.]
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