Ibrahim has a Bachelor of Agriculture and a Master’s degree in soil science, from Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria. His PhD research project is assessing the potential of various organic amendments to increase soil organic matter and enhance plant uptake of fertilizer phosphorus. Soils in southwestern Ontario are predominantly calcareous (i.e., they contain high amount of calcium carbonates). A major problem of calcareous soils in crop production is the transformation of phosphorus from available forms to unavailable forms through binding with calcium carbonate. Because of this, most of the phosphorus applied for grain production in Ontario is not taken up by plants but transformed to unavailable forms by the carbonates. Ibrahim’s focus is to understand, at the molecular level, the property of organic amendments that increase soil organic matter and govern its ability to increase plant uptake of nutrients, finding solutions for sustainable food production and enhancing soil health.

Back to Our Experts