Advanced soil analysis – South East Farmer
The most important investment you can make on your farm ...
Are you looking to unlock the potential of soils on your farm? Jade Prince, Hutchinsons services specialist, shares her views on the importance of gaining a deeper insight into soils.
This summer’s Hutchinsons Helix events opened a door into the world of soil functionality, highlighting how our advanced Gold soil analysis and TerraMap Gold can be used to capture and then interpret the intricate dynamics at play in our soils.
There are four key areas to address:
This is the measurement you will be used to seeing on a standard soil analysis. It tells us soil acidity or alkalinity at the time of sampling. The Gold analysis goes beyond this, providing an additional measurement, buffer pH.
This tells us what pH the soil would sit at if not for our intervention. Ideally, we want pH and buffer pH to be within 0.2 of each other. This indicates that the soil is less likely to undergo drastic fluctuations, maintaining optimal conditions for plant growth as the soil readily accepts or donates nutrients. However, disparity between the two can lead to nutrient imbalances, as the soil’s ability to regulate nutrient availability becomes compromised. It can also indicate preferred microbial dominance between bacteria and fungi.
Through Healthy Soils analysis we can work towards correcting any pH disparity and improving nutrient availability.
CEC is important as it determines the ability of the soil to hold on to cations, such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium and ammonium. Influenced by soil type, organic matter (OM) content and pH, CEC essentially tells us the size of the soil, or its ability to hold on to nutrition. The larger the CEC, often found in clay or high OM soils, the more nutrients that can be exchanged and used by plants; the lower the CEC, often found in sandy soils, the fewer nutrients will be held in the soil.
From this, it is possible to look at how to best manage any nutrition applied to the soil either as chemical fertilisers or organic manures.
The soil’s bulk density and texture provides an insight to structure and associated features including water infiltration, available water capacity, soil porosity and rooting ability. An ideal bulk density is around 1.1 to 1.2, meaning there is space between soil particles for air and water flow and root growth.
We can advise on best steps to improve the bulk density of the soil to ensure that your crops have the best possible chance of success.
Not only does the Gold analysis provide available nutrient quantities, but it also provides total nutrients, allowing us to identify real nutrient deficiencies and uncover nutrient imbalances. We will advise on best practice to ensure we make the most of these two pools, with the aim of improving soil’s functionality, optimising fertiliser efficiency and increasing profitability.
These four areas of the Gold analysis are all important soil properties and by measuring them we can forget guesswork and embrace data-driven decision making that will optimise resource use, maximise yields and foster sustainable farming practices.
The most important thing is to get these parameters measured and then get the results interpreted, allowing understanding of the interactions and the best management practices to boost your soil’s functionality and your farm’s profitability. The healthy soils team covers the whole of the UK delivering this service.
To invest in the future of your farm by advancing your soils please contact soils@hlhltd.co.uk
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