Worlds collided in June 2025 when members of COG’s Regenerative Organic Oats (ROO) program team, took a field trip to Oyen, Alberta to visit the Chinook Applied Research Association (CARA) Soil Health Lab and its amazing team of soil scientists. With farm visits already underway for the 2025 ROO season, the team was so excited to see the incredible ways that the soil they gathered from participating ROO farms was being processed and analyzed.
As a core aspect of the ROO program, coordinators head out to participating farms in the summer months to perform a series of soil sampling and monitoring metrics to assess regenerative organic farm management impacts on soil, crop, and landscape health. Once the coordinators collect soil samples, they ship them off to CARA Soil Health Lab for assessment. The scientists at CARA Soil Health Lab then process the samples and count the microbes present, which provides a summary of the active life residing in ROO farmers’ soils.
On the first day of training, the ROO Team was greeted warmly by the folks at CARA Soil Health Lab before embarking on a journey into the world of soil biology. The two-day training was generously filled with soil biology topics that reinforced the methodologies of ROO soil monitoring techniques. Dr. Yamily Zavala, the knowledgeable and ever-witty leader of the CARA Soil Health Lab, guided our group through soil sampling protocols, innovative lab analyses and instruments, and the incredible process of viewing the microorganisms that build our soil under the microscopes.
Each day was a wonderful opportunity to learn how soil biology is the key to building healthy soils, and how farm management plays a crucial role in establishing and regenerating the biological populations that make crops grow. As ROO Program Coordinator Dru put it:
“The week could be summed up in one word: relationships. We were building and strengthening relationships within the ROO team and with our partners at MGM and CARA Labs. At the same time, we were deepening our understanding of the relationships and feedback loops within the soil processes, including the biological, physical, and chemical aspects, and how they connect to soil and crop health. It was about strengthening a systems approach, appreciating these connections, and empowering ourselves as coordinators with the knowledge to be more informed and better support producers.”
ROO’s continued collaboration with CARA Soil Health Lab is one that we are extremely excited about, and we would like to extend our deepest gratitude to Dr. Yamily Zavala and her team for welcoming us into their world and showing us the ropes that are involved in the analysis of soil biology. We look forward to many more of these insightful experiences.
About the ROO Program
Regenerative Organic Oats (ROO) is a farmer-forward program designed to support Prairie-based growers who are interested in transitioning to regenerative organic farm management. The program is funded by Nature’s Path, Riverside Naturals Foods (producers of the snack brand MadeGood), and MGM Seed and Grain/Bay State Milling in a supply chain collaboration that supports and bolsters the growth of the Canadian regenerative organic oats supply by focusing on soil health in the agricultural landscape.
For more information about the ROO program, please contact Dorthea Gregoire at dorthea.gregoire@cog.ca or 204-392-4460.