Soil plays an increasing number of roles and needs regular monitoring

Soils are increasingly the focus of public and governmental interest.

Following the run of extreme seasonal weather over the last few years, concern over the state of the nation’s soils now extends beyond food production to wider ecosystem services.

The role of soils in flood prevention, greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering carbon to mitigate climate change, naturally controlling pests and diseases, and for food security is commonly aired in the media.

The Government’s stated ambition is that “all soils should be managed sustainably by 2030, supporting profitable and productive farming, and underpinning targets for clean water and air…” (Defra 25-year environment plan) and a new initiative for soil health brings together scientists, academics, industry farm advisers and farming bodies to take a long-term approach to understanding and improving the health of soils across UK farmland for generations to come.

Realising these worthy ambitions depends crucially on our ability to measure and monitor soil health, which is the result of a balanced interaction between the physical, chemical and biological components that make up the soil environment.

A “healthy” soil will have sufficient biological activity to break down organic matter to release nutrients for plant growth and build soil structure to maximise those additional ecosystem services.

While many of these processes can be replicated artificially by the expensive use of fertilisers, pesticides and intensive tillage, the only sustainable way is through improving soil health.

This, by definition, requires regular repeated testing to measure the health of the soil.

Think of it like a trip to the doctor: the initial consultation will reveal the condition of the patient and, based on this, a course of treatment is prescribed, but you need a follow-up appointment to determine the extent of improvement and recovery.

So it is with a soil: an initial soil test will say what state the soil is in, a series of management options can be agreed and subsequent testing will show the extent of improvement.

The SAC Consulting soil health test specifically addresses soil health and combines key physical, chemical and biological assays with specific management advice and data management options to capture the allimportant temporal changes.

The test is targeted for the farmer, with the objective of optimising crop productivity while improving the health of the soil.

The underlying philosophy is that a healthy soil will be in the best shape for crop production and the wider environment.

The test is based on the wellestablished routine soil assays, but now with measures of soil organic matter and microbial activity and additional in-situ measures of soil structure (to detect compaction) and earthworm abundance.

The newly-developed soil report has a highly visual “traffic-light” system to identify where your soil is in relation to the expected values.

The test results are securely held in a confidential database so that changes over time can be seen at the touch of a button.