Alberta Soil Quality Card

The Alberta Environmentally Sustainable Agriculture (AESA) Soil Quality Monitoring Program has developed and published an Alberta Soil Quality Card. It is an easy to use method to assess soil quality at the field level and is based on the producers’ knowledge of soil characteristics within their own fields. The card uses sensible, farm level indicators and descriptions to qualitatively measure soil quality. The producers can look at soil quality indicators in the field and complete a do-it-yourself quality rating system.

The Alberta Soil Quality Card can be used to identify those soil quality indicators that need improvement and consider management options to improve soil quality.

Use of this card every 1 to 5 years:
allows assessment of current soil quality conditions,

• records changes in soil quality over time,
• identifies potential problem areas, and
• provides a measure of soil quality to compare fields or management practices.

• The first part is an information package that describes what a Soil Quality Card is, why it should be used, how it is used and various management options to help improve soil quality.
• The second part is the Soil Quality Worksheet, which on one side provides a section for field identification and management notes and on the other side, a section that ranks and scores the individual indicators. Extra worksheets can be printed out separately.