How do I know if my soil is healthy?

Soil health comes as a result of nutrient cycling occurring. Nutrient cycling happens when the soil food web is present, this requires food, water, air, and root exudates from living plants to be available to the soil microbes.

When soil is fertilised using chemical fertilisers that are immediately plant available the plant has no need to use energy producing root exudates, therefore, soil microbes are not fed by the plants and are therefore unable to carry out nutrient cycling. The whole system shuts down over time leaving microbes either missing or dormant within the soil.

It is these microbes in the form of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes that produce soil structure, by producing glues that stick soil particles together forming micro aggregates, over time these micro aggregates also stick together to form macroaggregates and these create the pore spaces in soils for air, water, earthworms and microarthropods to travel through.

It also reverses compaction and clay pans allowing roots to penetrate easily through the soil profile in search for moisture and nutrients that were previously not available to them as they were unable to penetrate these compaction layers. As these life forms go about their business, they consume one another and the waste they produce is plant available nutrition (nature’s fertiliser).

We can test your soil to find out what microbes are present and will give you a baseline result from which you can make amendments to your soil management practices.

Get in Touch