Optimizing Spent Brewer’s Grain as an Effective Soil Amendment

Optimizing Spent Brewer’s Grain as an Effective Soil Amendment

Emily Stratford

Abbey Gardens, Heather Reid

Karen Thompson, Geography

TP-4814

2019

Haliburton

Soil health is vital to global ecosystem functions, as well as the production and sustainability of food crops (Doran, 2002). With many stressors weighing on this critical component of the Earth’s biosphere, developing sustainable management strategies that increase soil organic matter is crucial. Abbey Gardens is an organization that aims to employ sustainable management strategies to revive a spent gravel pit into a thriving ecological and economically abundant community hub (“Abbey Gardens”, 2019). This research is aimed to determine how to optimize the use of on-site Brewer’s Spent Grain (BSG) to amend Abbey Gardens soil. This was done through measuring several key soil health characteristics including LOI, wet aggregate stability, pH, conductivity, germination success, and leaf count of various amendment concentrations applied to soil. While the amendment did improve some soil health characteristics, further research including field trials will help to hone in on the best usage strategy to increase crop yields in gardens.