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Regenerative Agriculture and Direct Drilling
Holistic Farming
monitoring soil health
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<blockquote data-quote="Old McDonald" data-source="post: 3154594" data-attributes="member: 47276"><p>First, define soil health. Nothing I have ever seen, heard or read has defined it to my satisfaction. A bit like ourselves, I suppose. I consider I am in good health. Eat, drink and sleep well. I have age and sport injury related joint problems, but can expect those. I think it is the same with any animal, plant or soil. How do we know that a soil is at its peak of "health"? It is impossible to quantify all that should make up a soil to reach that peak, even if we could define what the peak should be. As posted above there are many YouTube videos of considerable interest (and varying quality) about the matter, but all follow the same basic content, so viewing a small selected shorter ones is probably as much as most people can take in in one session. </p><p></p><p>For 60 years I have submitted soil samples to labs for testing. I had my own testing equipment for a few basic things at one time. It was not cheap and neither was it satisfactory. I gave it away in the end, because knowing the history of the soils, I could not accept the readings on three different properties. Check tests by a lab disagreed with my results too. The pH was particularly a long way off. Kits may have improved, but i prefer to spend the small cost on a professional test. The local Ag College does them for me, so no commercial gain from giving me low readings!</p><p></p><p>I totally agree with mikep's quoted post. I tend to do more detailed tests now because I have the basics covered after 13 years here (not everywhere up to scratch yet) and I want to monitor the quantities and relationship of minor elements to keep them in balance and maximise the production from my olive trees. They will survive utter neglect; produce reasonably with virtually no attention (but poor quality fruit that has to be thrown in with all the other similar fruit and bulk oil taken as payment); but for profitable production of high quality fruit that can be sold, they respond admirably to TLC and correct feeding and watering. Things can still go wrong of course. Excessive rain at blossom time was this year's main problem for many growers.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Old McDonald, post: 3154594, member: 47276"] First, define soil health. Nothing I have ever seen, heard or read has defined it to my satisfaction. A bit like ourselves, I suppose. I consider I am in good health. Eat, drink and sleep well. I have age and sport injury related joint problems, but can expect those. I think it is the same with any animal, plant or soil. How do we know that a soil is at its peak of "health"? It is impossible to quantify all that should make up a soil to reach that peak, even if we could define what the peak should be. As posted above there are many YouTube videos of considerable interest (and varying quality) about the matter, but all follow the same basic content, so viewing a small selected shorter ones is probably as much as most people can take in in one session. For 60 years I have submitted soil samples to labs for testing. I had my own testing equipment for a few basic things at one time. It was not cheap and neither was it satisfactory. I gave it away in the end, because knowing the history of the soils, I could not accept the readings on three different properties. Check tests by a lab disagreed with my results too. The pH was particularly a long way off. Kits may have improved, but i prefer to spend the small cost on a professional test. The local Ag College does them for me, so no commercial gain from giving me low readings! I totally agree with mikep's quoted post. I tend to do more detailed tests now because I have the basics covered after 13 years here (not everywhere up to scratch yet) and I want to monitor the quantities and relationship of minor elements to keep them in balance and maximise the production from my olive trees. They will survive utter neglect; produce reasonably with virtually no attention (but poor quality fruit that has to be thrown in with all the other similar fruit and bulk oil taken as payment); but for profitable production of high quality fruit that can be sold, they respond admirably to TLC and correct feeding and watering. Things can still go wrong of course. Excessive rain at blossom time was this year's main problem for many growers. [/QUOTE]
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monitoring soil health
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