ARTICLES

 Have you looked at your soil lately?

© Vivienne Cruickshank, B.Sc, M.Appl.Sc (hons)

 To contact me viv@earthbridge.co.nz

Why would you want to look at your soil?

Soil is the base of your whole pasture system, indeed of the health of the plants and the animals that feed from those plants. If the soil is healthy and balanced then the plants growing on the soil will reflect this, delivering full nutrition to your animals, improving their health and their behaviour. Have you ever had a quiet, well mannered horse go nuts when they’re shifted to another farm to feed and yet when you take them home they’re calm again? Has it occurred to you that what he’s eating is affecting his behaviour? A healthy soil and feed supply can also help reduce the worm burden in your animals. There are several ways at looking at why this is. Firstly, if the horse is getting full nutrition from their feed, their bodies are better able to deal with pests and parasites. Secondly, if the soil biology is active and the full range of biology is available, the dung gets broken down quickly and the parasite population can be reduced by the goodies in the soil and the pasture.

What makes a soil healthy?

A healthy soil is a combination of good mineral balance, active soil biology and electrical flows. To find out how your mineral balance is doing, we use a soil test. Not all soil tests are created equal and the interpretation of the test is as important as the information itself. The use of acidic fertilizers such as superphosphate and urea are not helpful to soil biology or the availability of minerals. Brookside soil tests and the Pat Colby ( Pat uses SWEP Analytical Labritories in Austrailia ) tests are the most informative. Common amendments include lime, dolomite or serpentine and often trace elements such as copper, boron and zinc. It is really important that the tests are interpreted by someone who knows what they’re doing. I work with a company called Probitas and they have people available NZ wide, so contact me-at the email listed above- if you want the name of the person in your area.
 
 Once the mineral balance starts to be addressed - and depending on what you’re starting with, this is a lifetime project of monitoring and adjustment - the soil biology starts to develop. This can be enhanced with the use of fish and humate applications, or seaweed products, compost teas etc - depends on your situation and your budget.
 
 The electrical activity is not one that is commonly addressed in soils but the use of paramagnetic rock and other electrically active sea based materials is not new. Probitas has put together a product of iron sand, sea mud and paramagnetic rock dust that is applied to pasture to help get this part of the soil system working efficiently. However, the base mineral balance must be in place for this to be effective.
 
 Remember, the more balanced and healthier the soil, the better the pasture, the healthier your animals.

Is it full of thistles, blackberry, gorse, ragwort, Giant buttercup, or dry clumps of grass

Is there much clover. What does the clover look like?. Does it have small low growing foliage or large and upright

How long does it take for the pasture to recover after it’s been grazed

 Do the horses always prefer one area of the paddock over another

 Are there some places they’ll never feed

 Are there great clumps of grass around the dung & bare,eaten out patches elsewhere

 Is the sward cover even or clumpy

 Does the pasture look healthy Or are the leaves chewed dying back discoloured

2. What do the droppings look like?

 Are there earthworms underneath dung beetles (North Island) lots of creepy crawlies on the dung

 How long does it take the dung to break down ,2-3 weeks, 2-3 months, A year

 Do the birds get into the dung and break it up, or does it sit there

3. Get a spade and dig a hole as deep as the spade

How easy is it to get the spade into the ground?

 Do you have to try really hard Or does it slide in easily

 Is the structure so powdery the soil just collapses into the hole

 Is the soil sticky crumbly

What does it smell like

What colour is it

Does it dry out and crack in summer

Is the turf hard to dig through with lots of twisted, dried out roots

How deep is the top soil

How soon before you get to the subsoil rock or gravel

4. How far do the roots go down?

Measure this and write it down.

What colour are the roots

Are the roots straight with new growth bent and distorted

Break apart the turf and have a look – are there worms, grubs etc in amongst the turf?

 Are there any earthworms amongst the roots

 Grass grub larvae Porina larvae how many

Note the soil above. The sample on the left has a crumblier structure, darker colour, and if you look closely you can see patches of white, especially in the upper half of the sample. These patches are fungal mycelium, showing some good biological activity. The crumbly structure is also an indication of bacteria at work, they help build you soil structure by  - sticking - soil particles together. The sample on the right is denser, clumpier soil. Note different colour, texture and lack of fungal mycelium. These samples were taken a metre apart. The one on the right is from a herbicided area. The one on the left is not.

You are what you eat, whether you’re a human or an animal, are you providing the best pasture for your animals? Is there variety? Does the pasture recover when it’s spelled? Are the animals keen to eat what’s there? Is the green from real nutrition or is it propped up with nitrogen applications? These are just a few of the questions you can discover the answers to when you begin to learn more about soil structure and animal nutrition and the health benefits derived  from eating correctly balanced food