Eileen: Soil health is a very important um
part of our soil's resource
uh what we're really looking at is
the overall condition of the soil
um is it suitable for plant growth?
is it in a condition that's good for environmental quality
and water quality
um and there are a lot of things that we can do to
improve the overall conditions of our soils
of course, there are inherent properties of the soil that
um are long standing properties that
we have no control over
like what is the material that the soil was made from
and what's the topography amd what's the climate
but there are things that we can improve and that's
what we're emphasizing when we talk about soil health
John: You know what I'd consider to be a productive soil
is a soil where
you have, you know, high organic matter content
lots of residue on the soil surface
um maybe you've used Cover Crops
Um you have a wealth of macro and vertebrates
in the soil including earth worms
as well as um microorganisms so
and that's what I would consider
a very productive type of soil
Eileen: By having Cover Crops
the roots are growing into the soil
they are helping aggregate the soil
um they are enmeshing the soil particles
they're feeding the soil microorganisms
because roots are always leaking carbon compounds
into the soil
and it's really the soil organisms
that make the soil aggregates
John: There's a lot more
that goes with organic matter than people think and
it has a lot to do with microorganisms
that are present in the soil
that actually play a very big role in aggregate stability
Mike: Um every time you do any kind of a
tillage um activity
on your soil, your um
you're doing a number of things
um you're breaking down the soil structure
um you're making it more open
to um to oxygen to breakdown
an organic matter that's in the soil
um disruption to any kind of uh
microorganisms or
or larger organisms even
from a standpoint of earthworms and that kind of thing
Eileen: Um a little bit of tillage is not necessarily bad
but excessive tillage really does
a lot more harm than good to our soils
and it tends to feed itself so
if we do tillage
then we end up doing compaction
underneath the tilled layer and then
the next year or the next season
you have to till deeper or more aggressively
to break up that compaction layer
so 1 of the things we try encourage people to do is
till as little as possible
John: In doing no-till types of practice or
conservation tillage types of practices
are important things to do that
actually increase the organic matter content of the soil
Eileen: Um no-till, we actually disturb the soil less
so we're not, we're not decomposing
the organic matter that's in the soil as rapidly
as as we do when we're doing tillage
Mike: But even if you have a soil that
looks fairly good
um there's always room for improvement
and um
some people even refer to it as their annuity
where um more organic matter content
um healthier soil will pay off on down the road
Eileen: We have a new project that's really just starting
on soil health
and it's going to be going on for at least the next 3 years
we have 4 regional hubs in the state
where we will be focusing training,
research, and outreach
directly to farmers
But, soil health I think is going to be
a major emphasis over the next several years
among all conservation agencies
and so I would encourage people to learn more about it
and to realize that
um there can be big benefits for them
in their production system and there will be a lot of
opportunity to learn more about it
over the next several years