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On-Farm Assessment of Soil Quality and Health

2013; Linguagem: Inglês

10.2136/sssaspecpub49.c5

2165-9826

Marianne Sarrantonio, John W. Doran, Mark A. Liebig, Jonathan J. Halvorson,

Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics

For the concept of soil health or quality in agriculture to become more than an esoteric scientific notion, assessments of soil health must be made under the conditions of active, working farms. Tests that are appropriate for on-farm soil health assessment should be a subset of the screening parameters listed in Dr. John Doran and T. B. Parkin. To include farmers as active participants in the quantitative assessment of soil health on their own farms, tools, and methodologies used by researchers must be adapted for application by farmers themselves. The farmer's knowledge of the field variability will be a valuable resource in the informal grouping or concentration of sampling to test the desired aspects of the field. The preirrigation sample for soil water content and soil bulk density is used for determining electrical conductivity, soil pH, and soil nitrate. Soil respiration is sensitive to soil temperature and water status.