I want to receive ideas of dear researchers about providing better soils for increasing the farmers' resiliency and adaptability in combating climate change effects and conserving soil biodiversity.
A good soil is composed of organic matter, minerals, living organisms, air, water and has a great cation exchange capacity.
By minimizing soil erosion, soil salinization, alkalization and by enhancing organic matter content, and by maintaining the soil nutrient balance, we can make soil more fertile for a sustainable future.
No type of soil is better than the others. Each has advantages and disadvantages. In fact, the quality of soil depends on the use that we want to make of it and on its geographical location, therefore on the climate. The best soil for farming is well-balanced soil: it should contain a good proportion of clay, silt and sand, as well as a good amount of organic matter.
Regards
Thank you @Daniel Paredes and @Bachir Achour for mentioning valuable sentences about better soils.
Good soil or not, this depends on what one wants to make used of the soil. Making reference to agriculture,any good soil is one that is unconsolidated,has a well balanced proportion of silk,sand and clay yet having the enough of organic matter content. The soil aeration and water penetration should be as well enhanced.
Thank you @Bakary Konateh for your comments on defining better soils.
BioChar makes soils 'better.!
Science Energy
What Is Biochar?
By
Shea Gunther
Updated September 3, 2019
📷
Biochar might be the answer to climate change. K.salo.85 [CC BY-SA 3.0]/Wikimedia Commons
· Share
Though you may not have heard of Biochar, it's a good bet you'd recognize it if you saw it.
Biochar is just charcoal. It's created when organic matter like wood chips, rice stalks or even manure is heated up in the absence of oxygen. Think of a sealed metal drum full of wood chips over a fire. It's simple, can be produced anywhere and could just end up saving the world.
For something as simple as charcoal, Biochar — in the right applications — does three pretty amazing things: It takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and locks it into a solid form, improves the health of soil it's plowed into, and creates clean energy, according to the International Biochar Initiative.
When organic matter is turned into Biochar, the CO2 contained within the plant is converted into solid carbon. Plowing Biochar into soil sequesters the carbon for a long time — Biochar fields have been found in South America dating back thousands of years and still full of their carbon solids. Soils augmented with Biochar retain nutrients better as the tiny, sponge-like structure of the carbon solids sucks up and holds the fertilizer, reducing the amount needed. The same structure holds water better and has been shown to decrease the emissions of nitrous oxide and methane into the air from the soil.
When former slash-and-burn farmers in the rainforests of South America adopt slash-and-char techniques, they're able to stay and farm the same plot of land year after year instead of having to move on every couple of seasons when the soil becomes depleted. Their path through the rainforest is halted, saving countless acres. The farmers are able to produce a lot more food on the healthier soil and can improve and invest in their land and infrastructure.
An easy sell
Wood waste can be converted into Biochar, which can be added to soil to improve its health. U.S. Department of Agriculture [CC0]/Flickr
When organic matter is heated up in the absence of oxygen, it releases hot gases that can be captured and burned in power generators, or also refined into bio-oil and synthetic gas, both which can be further refined into effective gasoline and diesel substitutes. If the gases are burned right away, the process of creating Biochar — called pyrolysis — is energy-positive, returning six to nine times as much energy as necessary to run and maintain it.
Right now we're far from squeezing out all the benefits Biochar offers. Sustenance-based slash-and-burn farmers still must switch to slash-and-char, and we need to build the infrastructure for taking in agricultural waste from farms and then distributing the resulting Biochar back to their fields. One of the great things about Biochar is how easy it is to make. Poor farmers can make it using simple, handmade clay kilns, while rich farmers can build elaborate Biochar processing plants that also generate electricity, bio-oil and synthetic gas.
Biochar is an easy sell. Everyone involved in the process wins. Poor farmers get more food for their work and are able to settle on one plot of ever-productive soil. Rich farmers and corporate agriculture save a lot of money on fertilizer and also see the same boost in production. The environment benefits because of the reduction in fertilizer runoff and the removal of CO2 from the air. Big business wins because of the profits generated from the production and distribution of Biochar. Politicians get to take credit for implementing a pragmatic, job-creating solution to global warming. Workers get jobs. Governments get tax revenue.
Regrowing the rainforests
Researchers recently found that using Biochar is an inexpensive and effective method to help tree seedlings survive during reforestation attempts in the Amazon rainforest. In areas mined for gold, the soil and the trees are harmed, making it difficult to regrow and nurture new trees to replace those that are lost.
Researchers from Wake Forest University’s Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation (CINCIA) found that using Biochar plus fertilizer improved the height and diameter of
📷
tree seedlings and also increased the number of leaves that the new seedlings were able to grow.
“The most difficult period in a tree seedling’s life is the first few months after transplanting,” study co-author Miles Silman, CINCIA associate director of science and Wake Forest’s Andrew Sabin Presidential Chair of Conservation Biology, said in a news release.
“But just a little bit of Biochar does wonderful things to the soil, and it really shines when you add organic fertilizer.”
The study, which was published in the journal Forests, was based on research conducted in an Amazon region called Madre de Dios, the center of illegal gold mining trade in Peru.
This video above was produced by CINCIA for its Spanish-language outreach efforts to show how Biochar is made from substances like Brazil nut husks, cocoa shells and sawdust.
“These are the kinds of landscapes we have to recover, and we are still trying to determine how to grow plants in them,” Silman said. “This soil is extremely limiting for natural regrowth, but treating them with Biochar turns it into something that plants can grow in. That’s good for biodiversity and good for the people that have to make a living from the land.”
Agree with most earlier comments, well summarised by the word 'sustainable'. That is the great strength of the famous black soils of Ukraine, deep and rich and not dried out like much of the American west in the 1930s. But it depends on proposed use, intensity of use, and our rapidly-changing climate. In this respect tropical & equatorial soils are often fragile.
Soils derived from acidic rocks like granite often leach nutrients into inaccessible 'hard pans' far below the surface & they become inaccessible to crops, except long-lived trees.
In my country, up to 80% of the ecosystem's nutrients are locked up in standing forest. Clear the forest, Amazon-style, and most of the nutrients accumulated during the Holocene (c. 8000 years) are lost forever.
Soils and natural vegetation must be viewed as a single, interactive system.
By the way, geologists estimate that known world rock phosphate deposits will be exhausted within 50 years. This means that today's intensive agriculture is unsustainable and, to put it bluntly, our grandchildren will starve to death, just like in Afghanistan today.
Water & soil cannot support an increasing global human population, as today. Poor countries will get poorer. Diets will have to change and cotton will become more expensive than genuine pure silk. It takes c. 30 litres of water to produce a litre of cow's milk, and double that to produce a cotton tee-shirt. Do the math!
Thank you @Mike Kazuo Yushida for your comments and statements on biochar and @Sandy Barte for your tips and conclusion.
Thank you @Abhijit Mitra for your concise and to the point comments.
Soil Fertility & Soil Productivity are the two important and significant factors that decide a soil better or not. Nevertheless, A fertile soil may not be productive and vice versa.
A native soil which is not exposed to scientific farming is Better Soil.
Dear Elaheh Daghighi . See the following useful RG link: Article Better soils for healthier lives? An econometric assessment ...
Kindly see also the following useful RG link: Article Farmer and scientific knowledge of soil quality: A social ec...
Also check please the following useful link: https://www.sare.org/resources/building-soils-for-better-crops/
The following RG link is also very useful : Article A COMPARISON OF THE ORGANIC MATTER IN DIFFERENT SOIL TYPES.
Visit kindly the following useful link: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-alternative-agriculture/article/soil-quality-attributes-and-relationship-to-alternative-and-sustainable-agriculture/FEB16F9D7CE013FB32EDEF98EEE5D20B
What is BioChar for improving soil and production from planting for production
Thank you @Swaminathan for your comments in defining better soils and @Aref Wazwaz for recommending useful links.
Elaheh Daghighi soil can be used for other human need purposes. In case you refer to use of soil as media for crop production, the better soil mean the soil that has right pH and nutrients levels for supply in balanced quantities needed by particular crop for optimum growth and productivity, additionally, has structure that allows proper rooting depth and respiration of roots and soil macro and micro-organisms and optimum level and movement of soil moisture, that keeps soil a living matter and adequately provides the purpose of producing your specific crop. Note, that crops differ in terms of soil nutrients requirements, pH, root aeration, moisture in this sense soil better with reference to a crop in question.
The conservation of biodiversity starts from the ancient concepts of crop rotation, alternating with the right rest period of the soils.
Any other type of land use impoverishes its structure and causes major environmental damage, well known for some time.
Thank you @Zacharia Malley and @Gioacchino de Candia for your comments in defining better soils.
There have been several conceptions held about soil in the historic past. This has led to several definitions of soil by different people at various times. Some of the several definitions range from very simple definitions to very professional definitions such as the following:
1. Soil is a thin layer of material on the Earth's surface in which plants have their roots.
2. Soil is the unconsolidated mineral or organic material on the immediate surface of the Earth that serves as a natural medium for the growth of land plants.
3. The unconsolidated mineral or organic matter on the surface of the Earth that has been subjected to and shows effects of genetic and environmental factors of: climate (including water and temperature effects), and macro- and microorganisms, conditioned by relief, acting on parent material over a period of time.
4. Soil is a natural body comprised of solids (minerals and organic matter), liquid, and gases that occurs on the land surface, occupies space, and is characterized by one or both of the following: horizons, or layers, that are distinguishable from the initial material as a result of additions, losses, transfers, and transformations of energy and matter or the ability to support rooted plants in a natural environment.
However, among the different definitions of soil in the historic past, two have stood the test of time. These are soil as a medium for plant growth and soil as organized natural bodies.
managing soil organic matter is the main factors that make soils better to achieve sustainable development goals
Thank you @Mustafa Ismail Umar for providing different definitions of soils and better soils. They are so valuable concepts.
Better soils are soils that contains all necessary ingredients inform macro nutrients and micro motriwnts in the right proportions,then factors to enhance good soils is prevent deforestation,over grazing, burning,over cultivation and monocropping, rather the soil should be protected from erosion and then mixed croopping can also enhance good soils.
Thank you @Charles Ajagbe for putting valuable points in explaining better soils.
Among some factors that could influence the quality of soil are: Presence of sufficient clay and humus that are necessary for the retention of cations, anions (ion exchangers) and water. Absence of toxic heavy metals and residues of pesticides and herbicides that could jeopardize the existence of the microbiome with special emphasis on the mycorhizes (they make connections between plants and thanks to the secretion of glycoproteins such as glomerulins, they improve the physical structure of the soil.
The term betterment of Soil defines that the soil quality depends on the chemical composition of the soil, topography, the presence of living organisms, with time the quality of soil may affect, if not properly cultivated.
Organic matter, organic matter, organic matter >10% --then nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and pH between 6.0 and 7.0,.plus low salinity, low boron, adequate but not high micros like iron, copper, zinc--Silt instead of sand or clay. Originally a grasslands soil rather than a desert, wetlands or forest soil. Downside is irrigation with water with high mineral content will accumulate salts and minerals over time and ruin it.
Rolling the Paddocks after pugging from stock, not over grazing, crop rotation to have a better input into the soil and irrigation rotation
Thank you dear @Craig Carlton Dremann and @Clint Easton for your participation in concisely defining better soils.
ALSO--making sure that your soil is alive with fungi and bacteria! A soil DNA project in California is looking into that issue, project is called CALeDNA. I have submitted 10 samples from soils in California, to find what the associated soil fungi and bacteria naturally exist.
To take the process of improving crop production one step further, for each crop like beans, wheat, peas, rice or soybeans for example, it could be very valuable to go to the countries where their wild relatives still live, and determine what soil fungi and what soil bacteria they have a relationship with, Then, isolate and inoculate those crops with those organisms, wherever they have been taken to be grown in other lands?
Doing this could potentially make the largest advances in crop production worldwide. The wheat might be missing the fungi symbiotically lived with for millennia, as well as the beans, peas, soybeans, etc., and once they have their lifelong friends back with them, grow a lot happier for us, whenever we have removed them from the original habitats where they evolved.
Thank you @Craig Carlton Dremann for your adorable comments on preserving the soil microbes association, which is a key factor for defining better soils.
A better soil is living soil as fully able to promote plant growth, etc.
The way to this is to know the condition of the selected soil area as to its ability or no ability to nurture a pollinated seedling or plant and provide its nutrients needs and moisture needs as will a biochar fully sprinkler or channels irrigated plot of soil such as an acre plot or plots of soil. Biochar will give it (soil ) the plant nutrients, then plants planted there & attentively watered will be a field of gf growth.
SEE THE INCLUDED 'WHAT IS BIOCHAR & HOW TO PRODUCE IT'.
Thank you @Mike Kazuo Yoshida for emphasizing biochar as a key player in defining better soils.
Elaheh Daghighi
Better soil would remain soft while the void ratio remains seemingly low. Because the aggregates exists as packed together.
Elaheh Daghighi -- What is YOUR definition of better soils, so we can add other qualities on top of those that you are already considering?
Thank you @Craig Carlton Dremann for your constructive participation in this discussion. A good question you asked. My main focus would be the issue of soil nutrient balance in the soil and its relation to soil biodiversity richness, rather I look at soil from the soil biological aspect, to have more fertile soils to stand in a direction to achieve sustainable development goals.
Thank you @Abhijit Mitra for recommending this book. Yes, mangroves are really threatened by climate changes effects. They are key vegetation in increasing sequestration of blue carbon, providing habitats for thousands of marine species and remove pollutants.
There seem to be three key issues as we continue to utilize agricultural soils,
1.) The balance sheet between what out crops need and what our crops remove, and the two key nutrients that are very difficult to replace as fast as we remove them--organic matter and phosphorus, Phosphorus in particular maybe the limiting factor in the future for productive ag, soils, because there are only three concentrated sources of that element on the planet, fossil bones, modern bones. and bird droppings.
2.) The replenishment of the heavy-weight materials that need to be transported distances like organic matter and calcium, and the competition by other industries for materials like calcium for the manufacture of concrete for example. That is what I found in Haiti, they have mountains of calcium that the Americans are taking to make concrete in the USA, when that same calcium added to the farmlands there could increase crop production by 300%.
3.) The soil biome, when you remove the native plants and grow monocultures, you have eliminated eons of soil bacteria and soil fungi which evolved with those native plants. It is as if we had a wall painted in a mosaic of 100 colors, we stripped of that paint, and repainted in one shade of gray?
Thank you @Craig Carlton Dremann for adding three beneficial and important comments to this discussion.
You have to look at water holding capacities of the soil as well as macro/micronutrients in the soil.
Dear Elaheh, listen to this conference, by one of the most eminent systems ecologist in the world, Dr Ranil Senanayake, everything is perfectly resumed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLdRlSKTdLU
Thank you @Kiprotich Kiptum for your valuable comments and @Bastien Beaufort for recommending the link of a useful related conference.
Dear Elaheh, There are significant gaps in knowledge of science of soil conservation and operational strategies, both of which influence to potentially unhealthy soil. To optimise growing international soils sustainably, solid policy support is required. So raising civil and policies and practises knowledge of the crucial significance of soil biological diversity, as well as raising knowledge and understanding about how these soils can be preserved and intended to protect on a global basis, can aid in the achievement of the SDGs.
Thank you @Dinesh Kumar Madheswaren for mentioning your opinion on defining better soils and referring to Sustainable development goals.
Better soils for increasing the farmers' resiliency and adaptability in combating climate change effects and conserving soil biodiversity in available nutrient for uptake by plant.
Thank you @Md. Faruque Hossain for your definition of better soils and its relation to climate resiliency.
SOC along with different manures and compost mixture in relation with farmers and climate resiliency and adaptability
A balanced SOIL should be the preference.
Balanced by all aspects:
Moisture
Nutrition
Organic chemistry.
.
Which ingredients can help in achieving balance for almost all kind of soils are written on page No 9 & 11 of my publication SALT AFFECTED SOIL.
Thank You for question @Elaheh
Thank you @Md. Faruque Hossain and @Manalika Pandya for participating in this discussion and putting your valuable comments.
These are soils that support the growth of plants and other ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, soil microorganisms, water purification, etc.
Thank you @Bwema Ombati Mogaka for your definition of better soils.
"The soil that breaths is a better soil - C.Swaminathan". This statement has a lot of insight. We can comprehend on it.
As a microbiologist, I will add to the fact that soil health can be optimized by the stimulation or maintenance of diverse soil microbiome. The activities of microorganisms and their benefits to soil health cannot be over-emphasized
Depending on the area of the soil structure. Currently farming on the lake edge at Lake Wairarapa with silt loam structure which is also found at Greytown in the Wairarapa. Soil Test is a good indicator for improvement of the soil. I'm currently recovering from a flood so I have decreased the stock by set stocking for each Paddock to avoid pugging. Hopefully with more rain able to wash away the silt on the grass
Looking at it through food security and food safety approach of SDG, I think the soil organic matter is important.
First, it is the store house of nutrients that help crop plants to develop productively and provide humans foods. So, infertile soil or degraded soil can hamper food security.
The other aspect is food safety which is also connected to soil organic matter. As SOam is the store house of nutrients, it is also the store house of toxic elements in contaminated soils. So, soil rich in toxic metals loaded into soil organic matters could increase toxic metal uptake and bioaccumulation in crops. And these potentially toxic metals can be transfer along the food chain to animals and humans, leading to food safety problem, and consequently hampering SDG 2
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Geoscience
- Atmospheric Sciences
- Climate Science
- Climate Change