Reading soils : using easily obtainable soil information to assess soil functioning

Abstract

Soil function indicator Easily obtainable soil information Chapter Crop production Crop yield gap under wet and dry conditions VSE 1 4 Storing, filtering, and transforming nutrients and water Crop sensitivity to dry and wet periods: oxygen and drought stress VSE 1 4 Maintaining biodiversity Plant available water VSE 1 4 Serving as carbon pool Water storage capacity VSE 1 4 Serving as archive for geological and cultural heritage Nitrate and phosphate concentrations in drain water and groundwater Soil series 2 VSE 1 4 Soil nutrient balance Soil series 2 Chapter 1 14 This thesis focusses on easily obtainable soil information, because only basic soil knowledge or training is required to use or obtain this soil information. It is expected that easily obtainable soil information is available to many users, such as farmers or scientists, in many countries worldwide. The use of easily obtainable soil information to eventually increase soil quality and the sustainability of agricultural land management is thus available to many people, which increases the importance to test how this information can be used to assess soil functions. 1.3.1 The use of soil series to improve nutrient balance calculations Currently, most nutrient balances that are used in practice are at farm level or at a coarser scale. For policy makers this level of detail is sufficient to have an indicator of overall farm sustainability, and to evaluate the environmental pressure of agriculture in a region (Van Beek et al., 2003). Farmers and land managers, however, also make land management decisions at field level, and therefore farm-level sustainability indicators are not informative for decision-making at field level (Van Beek et al., 2003). Nutrient balances at field level, instead, could help farmers in making correct decisions with regards to environmental sustainability. Highlights  Large variations in N and P balances were found between fields at five dairy farms.  The variation was likely caused by management factors and soil types.  This calls for the use of field-level rather than farm-level nutrient balances.