Saskatchewan, big whitetail country!!! | In western Canada, after the land was broken and summerfallow was used extensively, the original om of the soil dropped often to half of its original content. Now, whether it levelled off or not, I am not sure, as summerfallow has become by and large a thing of the past. I imagine though, that the rate of decline would slow down. An exponential in reverse type of thing. Un-broken land in our area has 8- 12 % om. I have some soil that has only been farmed for 20 years, and it did not lose much om, because it only saw a couple summerfallow years. But my "older soil" which from the 1930's to 1980's, was often fallow every other year or one in three years, has om levels of about half the original om, in the 5-6% range. Since the advent of no-till, these levels have been slowly building back up. Rates of .05% a year, or half a per cent a decade is sort of what is expected in this new era. So in 120 years, we may be back up to the original om content in theory at least, after losing the same amount in probably 25 ish years of bare fallow conditions.
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A review question about organic "matter".
