Soil Health Refresher and Demonstration

M.S. Coyne

Emeritus Professor, Plant and Soil Sciences, UK

FCCD Board of Supervisors

6 March 2024

Thank you all for having me.

Remember, there’s no free lunch; let alone a free dinner. My price for this evening’s meal was giving a brief talk; your price was having to listen to it.

What is Soil Health?

The continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans.

(Within Ecosystem Boundaries)

Unless You Have A Really Nice Designer Car It Depreciates With Time

Even if you put gas in one end, and oil in the other, and air in the tires bad things will eventually happen if you don’t do some other maintenance.

Same with soils - except Soil Health practices could actually improve the value of the land.

From Gebremedhin et al. (2022)

What does Soil Health Consist of?

Optimal Combinations of Physical, Chemical, and Biological properties.

Healthy Soils Are �Resistant and Resilient

Resistant

Resist damage: drought, chemicals, pests, fire, flooding, erosion

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Resilient

Recover quickly – bounce back

M.S. Coyne – Plant and Soil Sciences

3/11/2024

Continuous Cover is Central to

Soil Health Management

This All Sounds Reasonable. �What Would Keep Someone From Adopting Soil Health Practices?

• Belief
• Peers (more likely if other peers use soil health practices; less likely if they end up being a 1^st adopter and standing out)
• Cost�- Delayed benefits vs. Immediate costs�- Potential for lost profits vs. Potential for land� improvement
• Control�- Practices need to be executable, � manageable, and measurable by the � producer

How can you measure and manage soil health on the cheap? Compare the best and worst parts of your property.

• Chemical Properties�- Soil Tests: Basic fertility and SOM�- Lime Recommendation�- Takes time to change chemical properties
• Physical Tests�- Soil Penetration�- Obvious locations for surface runoff (color, clay)�- Takes MORE time to change physical properties
• Biological Tests�- Rapid change but hard to do on your own

Three Biological Tests (Here’s where the demo part comes in)

Tea Bag

Whitey Tighty

Earthworms

Tea Bag Test

How much does the tea in a tea bag decompose after 90 days

1. Buy some packets of green and black tea in NYLON bags�- Green decomposes faster than black
2. Weigh the bags (weigh several bags to get an average weight).
3. Dig a hole 3 to 6” deep.
4. Place the bags in the hole with the string and tag extending to the surface.�- The more bags you bury at a site (5 would be very thorough) the more� confidence you will have in the result
5. Bury the bags with the excavate soil – do not compact.
6. Mark the location with a stick.
7. Return in 90 days, carefully dig up the bags, brush off excess soil,� air dry and weigh.
8. The lower the weight, the better the evidence for �active decomposition.

Whitey Tighty Test

How Rapidly Does All Cotton Underwear Decompose in Soil?

1. Sacrifice some old underwear (Who doesn’t have underwear you never want to see again?)�- All Cotton is best; all synthetic is bad; dyes tend to have adverse biological� effects
2. Weigh the underwear.
3. Dig a hole 3 to 6” deep.
4. Place the underwear in the hole �- The more underwear you bury the more accurate the result; treat yourself to� new underwear for the sake of science.
5. Bury the underwear with the excavate soil – do not compact.
6. Mark the location with a stick.
7. Return in 90 days, carefully dig up the underwear, brush off �excess soil, air dry and weigh.
8. The lower the weight, the more holes, the better the� evidence for active decomposition.
9. Cotton in contrast to tea, is a more uniform carbon source �for microbes

Earthworm Excavation

Earthworms love organic-rich soil with good tilth. The burrowing in soil creates porosity and aeration.

1. Mix ¼ cup dawn detergent in 2 gallon of water.
2. Slowly pour the mixture across a patch about 2-4 sq ft�- Pour it slowly enough that it doesn’t puddle�- If it does puddle you already know you have some infiltration issues
3. Collect the earthworms that rise to the surface for the next 15 minutes�- Note the number and size
4. Rinse off the earthworms and return them to the soil or go fishing

Why This Works

1. Earthworms breathe through their skins.
2. The surfactant in the detergent makes them think� they are suffocating so they try to escape to the �soil surface
3. This technique only gets the surface (epigeic) and �burrowing (anecic) earthworms

That’s The Brief Demo on Soil Health Measurements ��Good for Science Projects

Questions?