Soil Management: Understanding the Basics

Introduction

Well-managed soils can result in lower input costs and greater yields.

Soil is the basis of most crop production. If you manage the soils on your farm with care, you'll be rewarded with:

• more consistent yields, even under adverse weather conditions
  
• lower input costs
  
• sustainable soils for years to come.

The best management practices described in this book relate soil management to your entire crop production operation.

We'll look at how soil management benefits drainage, moisture storage, and crop yields. We'll also look at how good soil management helps reduce soil compaction, erosion, and runoff.

Well-managed soils also produce crops that have greater resistance to environmental stresses such as weather, and to many diseases such as root rot.

Soil is the basis of most crop production: manage it wisely.

But first, it's back to the basics. This section provides an overview of the science that soil management is based on: what soil is, how it is developed, its physical, chemical, and biological properties, and how to find out more about the soils on your property.

A good understanding of the behaviour of soil and soil life will help you develop and use a soil management program that will serve you well in the long term.

Building on this knowledge base, the second half, "Putting It All Together", addresses in-field soil concerns and lays out best management practices for a variety of conditions.

Throughout the book, we'll be referring you to other books in the Best Management Practices Series. For the big picture, we urge you to read these too.

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Soil Formation

The properties of today's soils are closely related to landforms. These landforms were created by glacial ice, meltwaters, glacial lakes, and wind. Advancing glaciers ground rocks into fine particles, and mixed and moved existing soil. Retreating glaciers dropped soil materials from within the ice itself. Meltwater deposited sands and gravel as mixed layers. Lakes that formed by ponding meltwaters deposited flat beds of sand, silt, and clay. Strong winds across bare, level landscapes further distributed the soils. Today's soils developed on these deposits.

While soil formation has been an ongoing process for 12,000 years, the process can be easily disrupted by human activities. A host of physical, chemical, and biological processes combine to alter the original rock or rock debris.

Humans have had, and continue to have, the most influence on soil development in recent years, largely through farming practices such as tillage and crop production.

Tillage can lead to:

• a breakdown of organic matter that had accumulated in the soil, and dilution by mixing with lower horizons
  
  • loss of organic matter and increased specialization and mechanization of agriculture
    have created soil structural problems such as compaction and soil crusting
    
• erosion
  
  • tillage of eroded areas dilutes the topsoil, as less fertile subsoil is brought up by the plow.

Each soil is unique, with characteristics developed over time that hinder or help manage a crop. All soils respond to proper management. Understanding your soil's limitations will help you design an effective management program.

Soil characteristics - such as soil physical properties, chemical properties, and biological properties - are related to soil formation and also influence ongoing soil management.

Soil properties that influence choices in crop production and environmental sustainability are considered in the next section.

Available in Published Version of Soil Management

• Soil Formation
  • Soil Development with Time - Figure
  • Common Sequence of Soil Horizons on Ontario Farms - Figure
  • Glacial Landforms and the Common Soil Types of Ontario - Chart
  • Soil Degradation with Time - Figure

| Introduction | Physical Properties | Chemical Properties | Biological Properties |
| Information & Interpretations | Soil Structure | Erosion | Other Soil Management Problems |
| Best Management Practices for Soil | Table of Contents |

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