14 Treena Hein THE ROUND, CRUMBLY SOIL AGGREGATES AND EARTHWORMS FOUND IN THIS ALBERTA SOIL ARE INDICATORS OF GOOD MANAGEMENT THROUGH CROP ROTATION, MINIMAL SOIL DISTURBANCE, COVER CROPS, AND COMPOSTS. PHOTO COURTESY OF CAMERON OGILVIE. Agronomy THREE YEARS, USD $6.5 million, and 124 sites across Canada, the United States, and Mexico — these were the basic ingredients that came together in a successful effort to identify the three most effective and widelyapplicable measurements of soil health. These measurements have been validated in North America and may benefit farmers with similar soils in other parts of the globe. The North Carolina-based Soil Health Institute (SHI) partnered with over 100 scientists at 124 long-term agricultural research sites in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to evaluate over 30 soil health indicators and narrowed it down to three. SHI research scientist Dr. Dianna Bagnall explains that by using these three measurements of soil health, farmers can try various ways of improving soil health and discern how much of a difference they have made. “Crop growers need a small, affordable, and reliable suite of tests,” she asserts. “These tests can provide good insight, if measured over time, to see the direction their soil health is going, or farmers might want to compare the measurements between different practices they are using.” Soil health is complex, says Bagnall, and it has not been easy for growers to answer important basic questions about soil health, Measuring soil health THREE INDICATORS IDENTIFIED AS THE BEST such as ‘how healthy is my soil right now?’ and ‘is what I’m doing making a small, large or no difference to improve soil health?’ “Now, they have a way to get clarity about what actions are having an impact,” she says, “and to know when they have gotten the job done when they’ve reached their target level of soil health.” THE FINAL THREE One of the three indicators is soil organic carbon or SOC, which is mostly non-living organic material in the soil, such as decomposed plant materials, plus soil-borne organisms. High SOC levels contribute to
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