Keeping your feet on the ground

While a whole range of cutting-edge techniques are currently being developed for assessing soil health, farmers have been advised to keep their feet on the ground and concentrate on well-proven methods.

Speaking ahead of a major soil management event in East Lothian next week, soil expert Audrey Litterick said there was a need for farmers to pay more attention to their soil – a commodity which was often undervalued.

“There are some really exciting new techniques for testing soils, including things like soil food web assessment,” said Litterick. “There are also established methods for which there is little scientific justification, such as base cation saturation capacity testing but as yet we simply can’t reliably interpret the results.

While there was nothing wrong with becoming involved in new techniques, Litterick said their main benefit was to allow researchers to collect data to better understand the underlying science rather than providing information for making practical changes on the farm.

She advised farmers to focus on a more “back to basics” approach, encouraging them to get out into the fields and test their soils themselves, whether through measuring soil respiration, earthworm counts or using the visual soil structure (VESS) test which assess soil by sight.

“I want to see more farmers measuring the health of their soils themselves, as I think that way they will develop a stronger appreciation of what they can do to enhance one of their most important assets.”

The Great Soils event, backed by the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board, takes place at archer field estate,dir let on, next Thursday from 10am until 1.30pm.