Success in vegetable crop production has focused on crop plant health for the last fifty years. However, in the last five years soil health has emerged as a critical factor in determining vegetable crop yields and quality. Soil which demonstrates biological health has the continued capacity of soil to function as a living ecosystem that beneficially sustains plants, animals, and humans. Viewing soil as a living ecosystem that has 'health' reflects a fundamental shift in the way we think about soil. Soil isn't an inert growing medium that needs to be filled up with water and nutrients for plants to grow from. Rather, soil must be biologically healthy, teeming with large and small organisms that live together in a dynamic, complex web of relationships. Farm crops and animals were at one time a major part of this unique 'cycle of life’, however today that may not be true on major acres farmed.

References

Citation

Citation: Mike Orzolek. “Soil Health: Key to Success”. Acta Scientific Agriculture 5.2 (2021): 16-17.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Mike Orzolek. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.