Soil biology in orchards

摘要

When I joined Washington State University Extension four years ago, I asked farmers what they wanted to learn more about. One common request was soil biology and soil health. This area is a great love of mine; I started my career studying nematodes asindicators of soil health. In 2016, my colleague, Lee Kalcsits, and I started on theadventure of measuring soil health in orchards and examining how it relates to orchard productivity. We have measured more than 100 orchards so far, and I wanted to share a few teasers about what we have found.