Forest soils education and research: Trends, needs, and wild ideas

Requirements of an excellent forestry education have changed. Students are now required to complete more quantitative, social science and humanities courses. There are cogent reasons for this, but it has resulted in a marked decrease in the emphasis being placed on the land. Only 15% of the North American forestry schools require geology or geomorphology, while 15% have it as a recommended elective. Thus, as many as two-thirds of forestry graduates may be geologically illiterate! Ninety percent of US forestry schools require a soils course, but only 50% require forest soils. All Canadian forestry schools require both soils and forest soils. While this erosion of emphasis placed on the soil resource has taken place in education, the use of soils information in natural resource management has dramatically increased. Many organizations are increasing the intensity of forest management and moving toward the domesticated forest, which requires more knowledge of forest soils. All natural resource professionals need a firm understanding of the land and the processes that shape it. Nineteenth century forest soils research was basic and in the 20th century it was largely empirical. The 21st century requires a balanced mix of basic and applied research with more integration with other natural resource disciplines. Many principles remain to be elucidated, but in some areas descriptive research is still necessary. The establishment of long-term regional data sets that can be used in testing hypotheses to be translated into management guidelines should be a priority. Planning tools must be developed so that the best knowledge can be applied to management. In both research and planning, science rather than politics must set the agenda. We need to teach students the full range of soil management possibilities including active management as well as conservation and preservation. We must 'bust' our conceptual blocks in both education and research. We do not need more education; we need better education. Forest soils research needs to utilize emerging remote sensing technology both to improve our research efforts and to aid in land management planning. Remote sensing, GIS, and GPS technology can revolutionize silvicultural research, but we may need to alter our research paradigm to take advantage of it. We are too often prisoners of our past. We, those of us in education, government agencies, industry, and NGOs, must learn to work together or we will not meet the challenges of the new century.