‘Putting the biology back into the soil’ was the focus of a two-day seminar last week, which urged growers to adopt the Soil Foodweb methodology of boosting the nutrient levels in soil.
The backdrop to the event was the official opening of the first licensed Soil Foodweb laboratory in Europe, at Laverstock Park in Hampshire, a site owned by former F1 World Champion Jody Scheckter.
Scheckter’s mantra of producing ‘the best tasting, healthiest food without compromise’ emanates everything that is done at Laverstoke, a 2,500 acre farm that produces everything from cattle and buffalo to dairy products, herbs, clovers and every type of fruit and vegetable.
In addition to its new laboratory, the site has a fully licensed six acre compost site where it produces all its own compost and compost tea. Laverstoke is certified organic with the Soil Association.
The centrepiece of last week’s event was a talk by American soil microbiologist and Soil Foodweb founder Dr Elaine Ingham, who was joined by delegates from around the globe who had flown in for the occasion.
Ingham began her talk by questioning the thoroughness of traditional soil testing techniques, which she said often fail to take into account factors such as how variations in temperature and moisture affect the soil. In the US, she believed, flawed science based on too narrow parameters had led the Department of Agriculture to conclude that genetically-modified organisms were of no greater risk than the parent organism.
The Soil Foodweb system of analysis sees samples analysed almost immediately following extraction from the farm. Soil samples are sent overnight and analysed immediately before the soil biology has had a chance to alter in changed conditions. In summer for instance, their scientists have only a three day window to analyse the soil before it has changed so much that any test would be rendered useless. This window extends to as much as seven days in the cooler winter months.
When the soils have been analysed scientists are able to recommend steps that growers can take to improve their soils and gain an improved crop performance.
In a scarcely veiled barb at the agro-chemical industry, Ingham insisted that when soils are fully healthy then insects and diseases will not target crops. “Why would Mother Nature have root feeding nematodes?” she asked. “They only attack plants that are stressed and shouldn’t be there. When your plant gets a disease it is because it is not healthy.”
Ingham stressed that getting the soil right is a large extent of the challenge to produce the best quality crops. The right biological balance includes:
Disease protection (leading to no more pesticide use)
Nutrient immobilisation (stop leaching)
Nutrient availability (having the right forms in the right place at the right time)
Decomposition of toxins (getting rid of residues)
Root health, root depth, water holding, aerobic conditions in soil, improved soil structure.
One of the key benefits of the Soil Foodweb system is a massive reduction in growers’ water use, she reported, with other key plusses being improved yields, nil use of pesticides, improved soil structure and no inorganic matter used. “We even end up taking people off the organic pesticides that you are allowed to use,” she pointed out. “Just because you are organic doesn’t mean you are really off toxic chemicals. We need organic producers to go that one step further.”
Ingham said that her organisation was keen to ‘shift the scientific paradigm’ that the only way to deal with disease, weeds or pests is to kill them. “These things are actually the result of unbalanced soils, not a lack of chemical weapons,” she stressed, adding that getting the soil balance right is actually a less expensive way of managing crop production than employing chemical applications.
Ingham was also keen to explode the myth that systems such as Soil Foodweb could only be confined to small operations, insisting that large scale commercial growers could just as easily benefit providing that they took the correct approach.
Among the tools to help growers regain that balance in their soil are compost and compost tea. Ingham believes that compost, if produced locally for local crop production, can provide a major boost for healthy plants. “If made correctly compost is the one material that has everything we need in it,” she maintained. “We are working to make sure that compost in preparation here is giving what you need. We need local production of compost with local organisms for these areas.”
Ingham said that getting the mix of starting material right is key to creating good quality compost. She also pointed out that there is ‘absolutely no soil in England that lacks phosphorous, so why are we being told to add phosphate?’
Compost tea is said to be even more advantageous due to the fact that it typically contains a higher concentration of microbes and is easier to apply. The benefits of compost tea are said to include the protection of plant surfaces, retention of nutrients in the soil, greater nutrient availability to plants, improved soil conditions, increased rooting depths and better soil tilth.
Looking ahead, Ingham said the next big step in the microbial biology would be to look at DNA, a task that is expected to be on the agenda at the new lab at Laverstoke.
One grower adopting a soil-focussed approach to commercial horticulture is South African tomato producer ZZ2, whose chief executive Tommy van Zyl spoke at the Laverstoke conference. His firm is employing the Natuurboerdery, or Nature Farming approach, which he says it took on in response to customer demands for healthy, nutrient dense food that is produced in an ‘ethically correct’ manner.
The method focuses on the long-term improvement and stability of the soil and nature, though it does not entirely exclude the use of inorganic fertiliser, pesticides or herbicides.
In practice the approach looks to balance the mineral elements of the soil in an integrated pest management system.
ZZ2 produces 135,000 tonnes of tomatoes each year, as well as 30,000 tonnes of onions, 12,000 tonnes of deciduous fruit and 3,000 tonnes of avocadoes.
Following constant disease and pest problems that were not being alleviated by conventional methods, van Zyl says that the company decided to stop using all chemical processes and began to focus on the soil.
“Since moving in this direction our bargaining power has increased dramatically. We are convinced that for our long-term survival we have to have systems that are in step with nature,” he explained.
Benefits of the system have included improved quality and shelf life, improved soil structure, shorter rotations, and the decrease and in some cases absence of soil borne diseases.
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