The outcomes of ORC’s project Early indicators to monitor changes in soil health: evidence to update guidance for UK farmers, have been published.
The project’s aim was to identify ‘early indicators of soil health.’ These were indicators that a farmer might be able to use soon after they had introduced some change in management to find out if it was having a positive impact on soil health. AHDB’s current suite of soil health indicators are meant to be measured every 3 to 5 years to get a feeling for the long-term trajectory of changes in soil health. Early indicators of soil health would ideally detect a change in soil health as early as six months following a change in soil management. The challenge with finding these indicators was to identify a test that was sensitive to management, but not so sensitive that it would be affected by recent weather or land operations.
Ultimately, we identified three indicators with potential as ‘early indicators of soil health.’