The Retailer’s Perspective
By Eric Sfiligoj, Editor, CropLife
Since the beginnings of agriculture, soil health has been one of the key pillars on which all growers and ag retailers have built their yearly seasonal plans. Furthermore, in the world of 2023, the importance of this aspect of crop planning has only increased, with many insiders saying soil health is one of the keys for the industry to nurture sustainable agricultural practices going forward.
“Soil health is the continuous science-based pursuit of products and practices to harness the potential of soils to optimize grower outcomes and minimize environmental impact,” says Wade.
According to Dr. Jordan Wade, Soil Health Assessment Group Lead, Syngenta Group and the Soil Health Assessment Center, University of Missouri, the basic definition of soil health is pretty straightforward. “Soil health is the continuous science-based pursuit of products and practices to harness the potential of soils to optimize grower outcomes and minimize environmental impact,” says Wade.
As for why this remains important in today’s agricultural world, Mark Herz, Technical Specialist for CHS Inc., says there are myriad reasons. “It’s the next step to improvement in a lot of senses,” he says. “Economically, ecologically, being responsible stewards to continually improve [and] become more efficient. [We need to] understand and work with what nature has given us and to enhance that and utilize that to its maximum.
“Awareness and education have a lot to do with it, too,” Herz continues. “I think agriculture has goals to improve upon in this area — to understand soil health, plant physiology, and how it all works together. You need to understand what’s available in your soil and where there are opportunities for improvement. From there, you can start building plans for crops and soil health — all those things that lead to sustainability.”
According to Carl Bruice, National Nutrition Technical Manager at Wilbur-Ellis Co., a classic example of this kind of soil health thinking in action in agriculture comes from rice growers. “Not that they don't have their problems with herbicide run-off and things like that, but in terms of the ecosystem and soil health and soil management, I think [rice growers] probably do a pretty good job,” says Bruice. “All the residue they produce goes into the ground — every bit of it.”
As Herz from CHS explains it, the timeline for most growers when it comes to soil health planning follows the normal seasonal growing pattern. “After harvest, growers process the data from the previous year,” he says. “They talk about what worked and what can be improved upon. This involves their decisions on seed, fertility, pest control, and crop rotation. Then they start building their plans. And it’s more than just yield. These plans look at return-on-investment and anything related to soil health such as root interactions.”
“…Then, if you are able to accumulate so much biomass and you've got your nitrogen figured out, you can sequester up to 100 pounds of nitrogen…”
In recent years, actively tracking soil health has factored into growers working to improve their in-field carbon capture programs through the use of cover crops, adds Gina Colfer, Certified Crop Adviser and Pest Control Adviser with Wilbur-Ellis Agribusiness.
“Here on the Central Coast [of California], we're dealing with intensive vegetable operations,” Colfer says. “Some of the growers are on short-term leases, so they don't think that they're going to reap the benefits of the soil health component. So now what's happening is our state water board has incentivized cover crops by adding a nitrogen scavenging credit. They will put on last year's crop if you plant it in the wintertime.
“So, it's very specific to wintertime planting,” she continues. “Then, if you are able to accumulate so much biomass and you've got your nitrogen figured out, you can sequester up to 100 pounds of nitrogen. You know you've incorporated your cover crop in, so it could be anywhere from 70 to 120 units of nitrogen that you can sequester.”
Traditionally, Herz says, one of the most difficult parts of successfully managing soil health for growers has involved data collection. “Data collection is now the easy part,” he says. “The harder part is processing all that data, trying to get insights from it that can be made actionable. In this business, we like to look at things from a science-based perspective and then collaborate with growers to come up with some plans that can be universally implemented. But that’s sometimes hard to do with the sheer volume of data we are working with!”
However, Herz adds, as ag technology has improved, some portions of the data collection/management process have become much easier. Take the use of drones, for example.
“In the past, it would take a team of 50 people to do a by-hand count of every single plant in a crop field and that could take a week or more to complete,” he says. “But now, we can send a drone out and count every single plant in a field and have the results in approximately 20 minutes. This has significantly brought down the costs of not only collecting this data, but you now have much more comprehensive information that can be worked with more quickly than ever before.”
Down the road, Herz predicts the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) in agriculture will help this dissemination of collected field data for soil health become even easier, provided human operators still run the process. “I think it’s prudent to utilize technology, as long as it remains managed by a human and the decisions still lie with that person,” he says. “It’s fine to collect data using AI, but the next critical step involving decision-making aspect of it all still needs to rest with a person.”
Despite all these anticipated changes to soil health in the near future, Herz maintains that one of the things that will never change is the role ag retailers play in the entire equation. “The retailers are crucial,” he says. “They are the conduit between the information and the decisions being made on the farm. They work very closely with the growers and understand the field requirements and goals the grower has. They help the grower make informed decisions, and I don’t ever see that ever changing when it comes to making soil health plans.”
