The Breton Plots

The Breton Plots Fertility and rotation experiments were established in 1930. Dr Jim Robertson, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, explains the history and research being done at the The Breton Plots, an Alberta registered historic resource.

The Breton Plots were established in 1929 near the village of Breton, 100 km southwest of Edmonton, by the Department of Soil Science, University of Alberta. These plots were originally designed to find a “system of farming suitable for the wooded soil belt.” The “Gray-Wooded” soils are now known as Gray Luvisolic soils and occur in the northern interior plains of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The largest area occurs in Alberta (20 million hectares), of which 5.7 million hectares are potentially arable. Today, the Breton Plots provide a model of how diverse cropping practices affect typical Gray Luvisolic soils.