“The best time to start testing soil organic matter (or carbon) was 20 years ago; the second best time is now”
Attend any soil-related farm event, and you will be recommended to go home and take samples for analysis to give you a baseline. When I am giving talks myself, I have a slide that says – the best time to start testing soil organic matter (or carbon) was 20 years ago; the second best time is now – so data and baselining is really important. With the rise of regenerative agriculture and the focus on agriculture’s ability to provide climate solutions, having data and evidence to quantify the impact of activities is crucial.
However, within agriculture anything to do with delivering climate solutions is not linear and predictable; we are dealing with complex biological systems inherently dependent on the weather and huge variability in soil type, farming systems and management. This is where sampling can provide insights – sampling (as long as it is representative and taken following best practice) over time can provide insights into the impact of practices on individual farms and give confidence that things are moving in the right direction. But this takes time, and can prove challenging when results from the lab don’t show what we would like.