Soil Health Summit

Obviously farmers are aware of the complexity that surrounds soil health. At a recent soil health Summit, Dr. Harold Van Es of Cornell University underscored that thought. “Soil health relates to how soil functions. The analogy to human health is very similar. We all know what it means to be in good health. It’s no different for soil. Healthy soil functions well, it allows for good crops to be grown, good trees to be grown, it allows for filtration of water, it sustains very important biological functions. Remember, for example, that a lot of our antibiotics are derived from soil. The microbial communities in the soil are important. So soil health relates to all the services that the soil provides to us. For the past decade we have had soil testing that focused on the chemistry of the soil, nutrients like phosphorus and potassium, pH. Soil health tests basically expand that and also look at the biological processes in the soil as well as some of the physical processes. We look at whether soil is compacted or not, whether it has a lot of microbial activity, a lot of proteins or carbon, so it is just and expansion of the traditional concept of soil testing which has been extremely successful because farmers use soil tests and they know how to interpret the numbers and they make management decisions based on that or it.