Searching the soil

摘要

What does "soil health" really mean?Five years ago, Washington State University researchers launched a project to build a better understanding of that agricultural buzz phrase forPacific Northwest orchards, specifically.They found that the answer is, well, complicated. That's because the role of soil is complicated, providing many different functions in the orchard system."We want healthy roots, we want water entry and movement, we want high water-holding capacity as well as soil fertility," said Tianna DuPont, WSU extension specialist who led the soil health project with physiologist Lee Kalcsits. "There's lots of things we can measure, but what matters in orchards? What's related to our bottom line of yield and packout?"