- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Published on: June 12, 2017
Healthy soil does much more than hold plants upright on the surface of the earth. It is a mix of mineral bits and old plant particles teeming with microbes to form a mysterious and complex web of life scientists are just beginning to understand.
While scientists use high technology to study heathy soil – painstakingly counting soil worms and bugs, sequencing the DNA of soil bacteria, for example – some farmers know intuitively whether the soil is healthy just by walking on it.
Scott Park is a first-generation Meridian, Calif., farmer. “When I step on a field and it feels like a road, something is wrong,” he said. “If it feels like a marshmallow or sponge, that's good.”
Tags: Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation (6), Jeff Mitchell (26), Radomir Schmidt (1), Randall Southard (2), Sloane Rice (1), soil (13)
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