Agricultural crops of the Ontario Shield Ecozone: 2013 Mobile mapping ground-truth observation results

Mobile mapping technology was used to capture ground truth observations systematically for the 2013 cropping season across a combined total of 82,000 hectares of the Ontario Shield Ecozone. Results for study areas at Powassan (4,400 ha), Sturgeon Falls (6,500 ha), Chelmsford (8,400 ha) and Temiskaming Shores (63,000 ha) were obtained. Forage and pasture land dominate the Powassan agricultural landscape. A few grain fields were observed in this area. These crops were common throughout all of the mapping areas. Potatoes were noted to be a prominent crop in only the Chelmsford area. Grain and canola were observed to be very prominent in both the Sturgeon Falls and Temiskaming Shores areas. Clusters of corn production were observed throughout both regions. Soybean fields were most abundant in the latter. The first digital field-specific crop maps for the farming areas of the Ontario Shield Ecozone will be built with these results.