Interpretive Summary of the Technical Paper:
“A minimum suite of soil health indicators for North American agriculture”
The concept of soil health is appropriately receiving increased attention from farmers, ranchers, corporations, governments, and others because of the many ways that healthy soils benefit farmers and the environment. Soil scientists use many types of measurements to assess how agricultural management impacts soil health; however, a uniform set of effective measurements is needed that can be widely used across different soils, climates, cropping systems, and management practices.
To address this need, the Soil Health Institute partnered with approximately 100 scientists to evaluate over 30 soil health measurements at 124 long-term agricultural research sites across North America. We found that many indicators are effective for assessing soil health from a research perspective. While this is good news for the science, we also wanted to identify a minimum suite of measurements that is practical and affordable for all land managers. Therefore, we also evaluated each measurement through additional filters, namely, that the indicator 1) primarily reflects soil health rather than inherent soil properties or fertility, 2) responds to agricultural management practices that exemplify soil health principles, 3) is conducive to measuring soil health at scale in terms of cost and availability, and 4) is not redundant with other measurements.
As a result of these assessments, the following minimum suite of soil health indicators is recommended for agricultural soils across North America: 1) soil organic carbon concentration, 2) carbon mineralization potential, 3) aggregate stability, and 4) predicted available water holding capacity. This minimum suite of soil health indicators is expected to increase the number of stakeholders capable of quantitatively testing their soil, which may increase adoption of management practices that result in healthier soils. Greater adoption of soil health-improving management systems will benefit farmers and the environment. Learn more about this project by reading the peer-reviewed manuscript here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667006223000011#bib0013