Soil Health and Management
What is ‘Rock Dust’ (Enhanced Weathering) and how it can Affect Soil Health and Carbon Sequestration
What is ‘rock dust’? Rock dust, or enhanced weathering (EW) mainly comprises igneous (volcanic) material rich in magnesium and calcium (essential for enhanced weathering), such as basalt, olivine and dunnite which are crushed to a powder for application to soils. Rock dust on soils – the concept Figure 1 outlines the concept of EW which…
Can Biostimulants be used to Support Soil Health?
There is a lot of discussion around managing soils to achieve ‘healthy soil’ status. Soil health indices comprises a mixture physical, chemical and biological parameters. There are many products on the market which promote potential benefits to soil health through the manipulation of the soil biology. What is soil health? The Food and Agriculture Organisation…
Can we store more carbon in our soils?
There is a lot of discussion around how we ‘lock up’ more carbon in our soils, however due to natural processes, this is more challenging than just applying more organic matter. The aim of this factsheet is to ‘go back to the basics’ to understand how carbon is stored in soils to provide further understanding…
CropCast – Soil Health: A View from Jim Wilson
In this episode Tiffany Stephenson is joined by Angus Farmer & Managing Director of Soil Essentials, Jim Wilson to discuss soil health and the types of tests arable farmers should be considering. Welcome to CropCast, your go to podcast for all the latest information on arable crops. Each month, SAC advisor, Tiffany Stephenson will be…
Understanding Soil Carbon
Soil comprises a mixture of mineral and organic material derived from the breakdown of parent material during soil formation and more recent additions of vegetation litter, dead roots, plant material and animal wastes. Therefore, soil organic matter (SOM) contains a range of nutrients including carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and other nutrients, with SOM being…