A way of benchmarking soil health plus a tool aimed at helping farmers tackle soil compaction were among the highlights at Farmers Weekly’s Soils in Practice 2018 event. Farmers Weekly takes a look at the practical messages that can help growers improve their soil management in an insightful article published online.
Defining soil health is tricky, but growers need look no further than the undisturbed ground around their field margins for a simple way to benchmark what a healthy soil is in the context of their own farm.
At the Soils in Practice event at Euston Estate near Thetford in Suffolk, the soil profile under 200-year-old deciduous woodland and the neighbouring “60 acre” arable field were uncovered in soil pits.
In addition, fertiliser company Yara carried out detailed analysis of samples from the brown sand soil at each location and the results can be seen in the table published in the FWI article.
