In 2016, a unique partnership was formed to identify indicators that can be used to test whether soil is in a healthy or unhealthy state. Funded by AHDB and BBRO, the five-year Soil Biology and Soil Health Partnership has just released its latest an… Read More
The AHDB GREATsoils programme has been signposted as a vital resource and tool for growers as part of two new soil qualifications from BASIS, the independent standards setting and auditing organisation. BASIS facilitated the creation of two new sylla… Read More
There’s a revolution going on in the ground below us. A growing group of passionate farmers have been experimenting with complex combinations of cover crops seed species which may have as much influence as cash crops on the future of sustainable fa… Read More
A new report by James Hutton Institute scientists has found that climate change, along with variations in machinery and farming practices, is likely to increase the susceptibility of Scottish soils to erosion or damage by compaction. The publication,… Read More
Rothamsted is trialling a new phosphorous fertiliser made from abattoir waste and industrial by-products as part of a ten-month EU funded project. Concerns over cadmium build-up in soils means that many naturally occurring sources of phosphate could … Read More
Urban farmers growing vegetables to feed millions of people in Africa’s ever-growing cities could unwittingly be helping to spread disease by irrigating crops with wastewater, a new study reveals. Experts discovered that wastewater collected fr… Read More
Some relationships can be complicated. Take the one between sweet potato crops and soil nitrogen, for example. Too little nitrogen and sweet potato plants don’t grow well and have low yields. Too much nitrogen, however, boosts the growth of lea… Read More
Beautiful things can happen when plants surround themselves with the right microbes. A study on Acmispon strigosus, a plant in the pea family, showed a 13-fold growth increase in plants that partnered with a highly effective strain of the nitrogen-fi… Read More
Plants can’t do without phosphorus. But there is often a ‘withdrawal limit’ on how much phosphorus they can get from the soil. That’s because phosphorus in soils is often in forms that plants can’t take up. That affects … Read More
Our world is drowning in a flood of plastic. Eight million tons of plastic end up in the oceans every year. Agricultural soils are also threatened by plastic pollution. Farmers around the world apply enormous amounts of polyethylene (PE) mulch films … Read More
Healthy soil contributes to healthy crops. Farmers know this, so they do what they can to ensure their soil is in good shape. They send samples of their soil for lab testing to find out if it is low in any important nutrients. If it is, they can take… Read More
Self-fertilization is a problem, as it leads to inbreeding. Recognition systems that prevent self-fertilization have evolved to ensure that a plant mates only with a genetically different plant and not with itself. The recognition systems underlying … Read More
Take a trip down into the soil beneath a field of crops. You won’t find just dirt, water, and creepy-crawlies. You’ll also find reactions that remind you of high school chemistry lab. Many researchers study the reactions of elements and c… Read More
Copa and Cogeca underlined the great strides European farmers and cooperatives have made in improving the quality of Europe’s freshwater at a launch event for the European Environment Agency “State of Water” report 2018. The report shows that… Read More
