As part of Crop Sphere in January the Saskatchewan Government announced $7 million for crop-related research through the Saskatchewan Agriculture Development Fund.

Through a co-funding partnership with the ADF and other producer commodity groups, SaskCanola is contributing $550,000 for 8 new research projects.

One of those projects focuses on Enhanced Saskatchewan Soil Data for Sustainable Land Management.

Angela Bedard-Haughn is an associate professor in the department of soil science at the U of S.
"There's all this wonderful soil survey information that was collected throughout the previous decades by our national and provincial soil surveyors and a lot of that information is very useful, very relevant, soils don't change that quickly but it's not currently in a format that is readily accessible to most users at a time where there is a growing need for it."

She says first step is to refine the information into an easily accessible and manageable format ie – desktop or mobile application that will help producers with their own management operation.

Their goal is to take the information and use it to come up with land management tools that could help in making decisions on things like fertilizer or pesticide applications.