How Can You Enhance Soil Fertility in the USA?

 Fertile soil has many functions in an agricultural context. It supports healthy plant growth by cycling the nutrients, biologically controlling plant pests, and regulating water and air supply for plant roots and the microbial activity. 

These functions are highly sensitive to soil management practices. Soil is a complex ecosystem with interrelated physical, chemical, and biological properties. Your farm's soil management practices depend on your continued soil fertility in the USA.


Ways to Improve and Maintain Soil Fertility:

1. Test Your Soil:

Test your soil not just for the NPK contents but also for microbial activity and micronutrients. Knowing which biology exists in your soil and its function offers insight into its nutrient-cycling capacities. Tracking that throughout a harvest and a season can give you valuable information on adjusting practices and improving soil and crop health. 

2. Look for Visual Clues of Soil Fertility:

Dig a hole in your field and count the earthworms. No earthworms? Your soil fertility could be higher. Look at the color of the soil to assess. Is it a rich, dark brown – or grayish dust? Fertile soil smells good and earthy. After a spring rain, there is a great smell in the air. This smell is attributed to the compound produced by Actinobacteria. Griseofulvin is produced by microscopic streptomyces. The bacteria release this gas to attract springtails and help disperse their spores. Turn over a damp log and see many "springing" away. They are harmless and feed on algae, fungi, decaying organic matter, and pollen. 

While looking at your dug hole, note how deep the roots have penetrated. You may have a hardpan layer if they're shallow, especially if you've been tilling. That soil layer of hardpan can be remedied without any more tilling. 

3. Get to Know Your Soil Weeds:

You have some allies in simply breaking up that hardpan you may never have considered. They are plants that act as "dynamic accumulators, " which you call weeds. Comfrey, stinging nettle, the chicory, lamb's quarters, and many more weeds with long tap roots break up the hardpan, bring up the minerals from deep in the soil, and bring soil fertility in the USA. Nettle and comfrey, especially, are rich in mineral content and nitrogen. They make the excellent additions to a compost heap or can be used as mulches. 

4. Disturb the Soil as Little as Possible:

Every time you opt to till, disc, or even hoe your soil, you disturb the microbial community. Those microbes, along with water and air, are responsible for the fertility of your soil. If you are using a moldboard plow, consider discing. If you are tilling, consider strip-till, no-till, or even ridge-till. They all retain almost 30% or more of the vegetative matter on the soil surface. 

Plowing your farmlands leaves them vulnerable to both wind and water erosion. It also brings the weed seeds to the surface, exposing them to enough sunlight and allowing them to sprout. Once weeds have sprouted, they emit auxins, creating territorial boundaries. When you plant your crop a week after tilling, it will never reach the entire potential. 

The soil food web consists of microscopic microbes, nematodes, earthworms, arthropods which are insects, and other burrowing critters that are all creating the humus in the process of living and dying. They act as supportive partners with your plants creating a complete cycle of fertility. Disturbing the soil when it's not essential disrupts the cycle, making room for disease and pests. 

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