Soil Health Assessment of Agricultural Lands

Stott, Diane E.; Wienhold, Brian J.; Es, Harold van

doi:10.1002/9780891189817.ch5

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Improving soil health in agricultural systems is a growing area of interest for farmers, agricultural and conservation professionals, researchers, and society. Soil health principles are (1) minimize soil disturbance, (2) increase plant diversity, (3) maximize soil cover, (4) maintain year‐round living roots, and (5) integrate livestock (Karlen et al., 2019; Lehmann et al., 2020; Stott et al., 2021). Integrating livestock, which may include manure applications, growing forage crops, or well‐managed grazing, is a recently promoted soil health principle because it recouples plants and animals for tighter nutrient cycling (Franzluebbers et al., 2012; Teague & Kreuter, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cropping systems with perennial vegetation and livestock integration promote soil health

Augarten

Malone

Richardson

et al. 2023

Agricultural & Env Letters

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Soil health can differ across cropping systems because of variation in edaphic and management factors. We evaluated how biological indicators of soil health (soil organic matter [SOM], permanganate oxidizable carbon [POXC], mineralizable carbon [MinC], autoclaved-citrate-extractable [ACE] protein, and potentially mineralizable nitrogen [PMN]) compared across four common Wisconsin cropping systems: grazed cool-season pastures, forage-based rotations that included perennial legumes or grasses, annual rotations receiving manure, and annual rotations receiving synthetic fertilizers. Biological indicators of soil health were up to 195% greater in pastures than other cropping systems. MinC, POXC and PMN were 10%-90% greater in forage-based rotations than annual cropping systems, but only MinC and POXC were greater in annual systems with manure compared to those without manure by 35% and 7%, respectively. Perennial vegetation and livestock integration offer the greatest potential to increase biological indicators of soil health in agricultural lands.

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