Soil Biology

[scholland]

I was at a Joel Williams (integrated soils) meeting earlier this week which I found fascinating and a bit mesmerising in parts! Few questions....
Do many measure soil biology and actively try to improve it? By which means?
Anyone tried incorporating a carbon whilst spreading bagged fertiliser to help plant uptake of the fert?
Foliar nutrients, K has worked well here so I plan to do more of that, anyone tried foliar Urea?

I really enjoyed his talk and it has certainly got me thinking, putting 1 o 2 ideas into farm level practice is the challenge.

Thanks

 

[David_A]

Heard Joel speak at Groundswell this year. Really wish to try the foliar urea next season. Lots of interesting ideas.
We have tried humates in liquid fert. Inconclusive currently here.
Trying to build soil health with covers and animals on arable ground.
Trying 'tall grass grazing' (Mob grazing) next year.
It's going to be a busy time.

 

[scholland]

Heard Joel speak at Groundswell this year. Really wish to try the foliar urea next season. Lots of interesting ideas.
We have tried humates in liquid fert. Inconclusive currently here.
Trying to build soil health with covers and animals on arable ground.
Trying 'tall grass grazing' (Mob grazing) next year.
It's going to be a busy time.

Thanks!
We are a livestock farm. So pretty on top of that side of things. Very sandy soils, up to 80%, and always low k so trying to help that along.
His idea of applying carbon alongside fert makes sense but I'd need to prove it to myself.
We try to have no bare soil, various crops in the rotation. Diversity in grassland isn't that easy due to our winter but will keep researching....

Will try a couple of biological soil tests and go from there.

 

[David_A]

Thanks!
We are a livestock farm. So pretty on top of that side of things. Very sandy soils, up to 80%, and always low k so trying to help that along.
His idea of applying carbon alongside fert makes sense but I'd need to prove it to myself.
We try to have no bare soil, various crops in the rotation. Diversity in grassland isn't that easy due to our winter but will keep researching....

Will try a couple of biological soil tests and go from there.

The carbon in fert I think is a slower burn. Takes a while to get going and produce results. Graeme Sait reckons you can reduce n fert applications by a third and not lose output if you put humates on with each application.

 

[scholland]

The carbon in fert I think is a slower burn. Takes a while to get going and produce results. Graeme Sait reckons you can reduce n fert applications by a third and not lose output if you put humates on with each application.

Ye that's the plan to try to reduce fert inputs. He made it sound so simple...... [emoji23]

 

[SilliamWhale]

The carbon in fert I think is a slower burn. Takes a while to get going and produce results. Graeme Sait reckons you can reduce n fert applications by a third and not lose output if you put humates on with each application.

He needs some scientific evidence. Shouldnt be hard for Niab or ahdb to trial

 

[neilo]

I’ve been trying to improve soil biology ever since I got here. To that end, there’s no ploughing here, all arable ground gets rotated through a variety of fodder crops, grazed by livestock. Little FYM spread, as the sheep do it themselves all winter, and no tractors or ring feeders on the ‘growing area’ over winter.

How do you measure it? Worm numbers have increased dramatically (from practically zero in some cases) and the soil smells and works very much better.
I’m sure there are more technical measures, but i’m Happy enough with the changes so far.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

You could try a soil respiration test, that's a fairly objective measure of microbial life in your soils.

https://www.qlabs.co.nz/page/soil-respiration-testing/

 

[Gong Farmer]

How you measure soil biology and hence Gove's 'soil health' is the million dollar question which we (Liz Stockdale) and others are addressing. It's not an easy subject to tackle.

Re soil respiration, we ran a long term project on green manuring which used that as the parameter for any benefits of incorporating mustard over several years. Agree, it's a useful indicator.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

How you measure soil biology and hence Gove's 'soil health' is the million dollar question which we (Liz Stockdale) and others are addressing. It's not an easy subject to tackle.

Re soil respiration, we ran a long term project on green manuring which used that as the parameter for any benefits of incorporating mustard over several years. Agree, it's a useful indicator.

Mr Gove would have trouble, in my opinion.

It's such a complex "thing" unless it is done for your own interest, to measure what YOU are doing is working, whatever that concern may be.

For his purposes it would be more simple to have a large team of eejits studying satellite images weekly, to monitor who is growing stuff - easily the easiest indicator of soil health IMO.
Growing plants feed the soil: a "pipeline"
Dead plants only add their residue: a "bucket"
Simplistic, of course, as growing plants will do both, and more...

Worms, yes they are important, but also hugely vary, especially in a grazing system:
I dig frequently, sometimes a spade spit will bring up 25 worms, sometimes close to 50, so it is subjective as a test.

 

[scholland]

At the meeting there were soil sample results with bacteria, fungi, active bacteria, active fungi, ratios, protozoa levels etc. It isn't cheap but pretty interesting

@neilo trying to do the same here but a lot of the stuff he talked about was another level. Foliar urea, carbon with fert, diversity etc.

 

[scholland]

I've ordered 2 biological soil tests so I'll share the results once they're back.

 

[scholland]

How come nobody mentions the solvita test on here?
Won't be as good as a full biological test but a lot cheaper.
Is it not very effective?

 

[David_A]

How come nobody mentions the solvita test on here?
Won't be as good as a full biological test but a lot cheaper.
Is it not very effective?

I think it only measures soil respiration. It cannot tell you what exactly is respiring. Is it good biology or bad biology?
Tests done here showed a higher respiration in soil with carrot straw ploughed in vs compost. I don't think that our healthiest soils are the ones recovering from a punishing carrot harvest. Inconclusive as a soil health indicator in my mind currently.

 

[scholland]

I think it only measures soil respiration. It cannot tell you what exactly is respiring. Is it good biology or bad biology?
Tests done here showed a higher respiration in soil with carrot straw ploughed in vs compost. I don't think that our healthiest soils are the ones recovering from a punishing carrot harvest. Inconclusive as a soil health indicator in my mind currently.

I figured it was quite a blunt tool, standard results are back on my samples so biological won't be long hopefully.

 

[Paul Gosling]

Problem with soil respiration and most other soil 'health' tests is they are hugeley variable in space and time. The biggest problem though, is deciding what you want to achieve, interpreting what you have measured and then deciding what management to do. Earthworms are a good example, you dig a few pits find you have 30 per pit, is that enough and enough for what? Having said all that, by not smashing it to pieces with big bits of kit and regulalry adding fresh organic matter you are not going to go far wrong.

 

[David_A]

Problem with soil respiration and most other soil 'health' tests is they are hugeley variable in space and time. The biggest problem though, is deciding what you want to achieve, interpreting what you have measured and then deciding what management to do. Earthworms are a good example, you dig a few pits find you have 30 per pit, is that enough and enough for what? Having said all that, by not smashing it to pieces with big bits of kit and regulalry adding fresh organic matter you are not going to go far wrong.

Yes I quite like the simple way, add dung of some sort, somehow, move soil as little as possible and keep something growing in it as much as possible. Add all that up and soil health should be improving.

 

[scholland]

Yes I quite like the simple way, add dung of some sort, somehow, move soil as little as possible and keep something growing in it as much as possible. Add all that up and soil health should be improving.

That's the aim here, and we are 90% a grass livestock farm so shouldn't be too bad.
But there are always ways to improve so I will try a couple of biological tests to see what they say.
80+% sand in our soil brings about some issues, in particular K, so hope to improve soil health and application type to help with that.

 

[David_A]

That's the aim here, and we are 90% a grass livestock farm so shouldn't be too bad.
But there are always ways to improve so I will try a couple of biological tests to see what they say.
80+% sand in our soil brings about some issues, in particular K, so hope to improve soil health and application type to help with that.

How's about adding extras into the grass sward.

 

[scholland]

How's about adding extras into the grass sward.

Plant diversity?
Always have clover, tried Plantain last year but it all died in its first winter......
Will revisit that though and open to options on grassland diversity if anyone has ideas of winter Hardy species?