Soil Quality

Soil is often our forgotten resource, but without healthy, productive soils, we would have no food, clothing, shelter, or clean water. For us to sustain a healthy economy and environment, we must work at maintaining and rebuilding soil quality. A good general definition of soil quality is the ability of the soil to:

• support and maintain animal and plant life,
• absorb and hold water,
• and act as an environmental filter (Jimmy Dean, GA NRCS).

Soils in Georgia are naturally low in organic matter; however, research has shown that soil organic matter can be increased by reducing tillage, using cover crops, and using organic soil amendments. Look at the right hand photo to see the changes to a clayey soil that occur with reduced tillage and cover crop. Increasing soil organic matter has a number of benefits. It can improve crop yields, decrease erosion, increase the amount of water that moves into the soil, and increase the ability of the soil to hold water for plant use. This results, in many cases, in improved water quality.

Soil organic matter is also an important storage mechanism for carbon; consequently, improving our soils may help reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that can contribute to global warming.

There are several ways to evaluate soil quality and whether it is improving or declining on your farm. The Georgia Conservation Tillage Alliance has developed the Georgia Soil Quality Card. This card evaluates soil quality quickly without the need for special tools or instruments. Georga also has several NRCS Soil Quality Test Kits. These kits can be borrowed from your County Extension Agent or by contacting Julia Gaskin or Jimmy Dean, NRCS.

There are many resources and links for more information on soil quality.