THE SOIL HEALTH TRIANGLE

THE SOIL HEALTH TRIANGLE

THE SOIL HEALTH TRIANGLE

Good soil is the key for successful agriculture. The measure on success may be productivity, food security, livelihood or ecosystem benefits or a combination of one or few/all of them depending upon the purpose and practice.

In all these scenarios three factors play the key role to success

DISTURBANCE

Soil prefers zero or NO DISTURBANCE whether its from activities like #tillage or from elements in the form of #erosion or from the application of excess

#Zerotillage, #minimumtillage ,designs to avoid wind and water erosion, #rotationalgrazing , nutrient and fertilizer application based on #replacement are some design elements that can help in zero disturbance

COVER

Soil prefers #cover.

Cover can be achieved either in the form crop itself by increasing the seeding rate, or by #covercrops or by #mulch or application/incorporation of #compost. Rotations( crop/grazing ) also ensure that soil cover is always maintained, #agroforestry is another landuse pattern than ensures a certain amount of soil cover


DIVERSITY

Soil prefers diversity.

The diversity can be in terms of the crop cultivated, #multicopying or by planned #crop rotation and by measure that increases #biodiversity and #biologicaldivesrity .


Just only 3 steps you may wonder...….All these are #nonsingular . These functioning of these factors are #nonlinear, so for managing any of these three drivers one should have a clear understanding on the possible #outcomes.

A successful intervention in one farm may not be successful in another which makes each intervention #sitespecific

This article very briefly touched on #regenetaiveagriculture perspective on soil/soil management and few cardinal principles of #regag #regenerativeagricultre like #nonsingular #nonlinearfunctions, #outcomebased and #sitespecific decisions

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