The underground revolution
Reading Time: 3 minutes
In essence it entails learning from what happens in nature and implementing it in our intensive agricultural systems, so that we can benefit from the services that soil provides in nature.
Soil aggregates: the armour in your soil
Reading Time: 2 minutes
As a farmer, your primary use for soil is for growing crops. Soil fulfils this function by being an anchor for plant roots and a store for water and nutrients. One of the soil properties that ensure that this happens effectively is soil structure.
Soil, where carbon belongs
Reading Time: 2 minutes
So what is soil and how can it sequester carbon? Soil is a living miracle. In one handful of soil; there are more organisms than there are humans on earth. We are now only beginning to understand this vast network of beings right under our feet.
Soil food web series: Kingdom Protista, the catalysts in the mineralisation process
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Protists are a group of microorganisms that did not tick all the boxes to be called bacteria, fungi or nematodes. These microorganisms play a crucial role in the mineralisation process.
Photosynthesis – the true source of soil carbon
Reading Time: 3 minutes
The original source of carbon in the roots is atmospheric carbon dioxide. Photosynthesis is a process which everyone has heard of, and probably studied at school, but I don’t think we fully realise and appreciate its uniqueness and value.
Soil is a living ecosystem that sustains life
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Farmers have the potential to significantly increase the productivity of their farm, and decrease their environmental impact, by implementing practices which improve the health of their soil.
The silver bullet illusion
Reading Time: 2 minutes
The unfortunate truth is that there are no silver bullets in farming. The agro-ecosystem is way too complex, with far too many interactions, to have a simple, single solution to challenges.
Soil food web series: Nematodes, the good and the bad
Reading Time: 3 minutes
A lot more attention has focused on plant parasitic nematodes rather than the beneficial free living nematodes in the soil. Intensive research needs to be conducted so as to better understand the role played by free living nematodes especially in the mineralisation of soil nutrients.
Are you managing rainwater like a waste product?
Reading Time: < 1 minute
Rain is always welcome on our lands. It is our responsibility as good water stewards to use it as the valuable resource which it is
Soil food web series: Bacteria, the little nitrogen factory
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Bacteria are one of the most abundant and widely studied microorganisms in soil. Microbiologists estimate that one teaspoon of soil can contain up to as many as 1-100 million individual bacteria and a hectare can contain up to 10 billion.