Global Soil Approach
The global soil approach consists, for a farmer or technician, in considering the soil in all its dimensions before intervening on the plot.
Considering the soil in all its dimensions
This approach thus involves taking into account:
- Chemical fertility, which improves nutrition: Acid-base status, capacity to store and release nutrients…
- Physical fertility which improves rooting: Good water and oxygen circulation in the soil thanks to sufficient visible (cm/mm) and invisible (µm and nm) porosity, good structural stability.
- Biological fertility which improves nutrition, immunity, and affects both chemical and physical fertility: Abundance and diversity of living organisms, notably microorganisms which constitute the soil’s chemical reactor and earthworms which allow the installation and maintenance of sufficient macroporosity.
Taking into account the physical, biological, and chemical interactions truly allows assessing agricultural interventions: are they beneficial or not in the long term? Are they able to properly enhance the real productive potential of my soil?
A properly functioning soil must be considered a living ecosystem.
Soil organisms, particularly bacteria and fungi, are at the base of all soil chemical cycles and at the base of plant nutrition. Thus, through their activity, they profoundly affect the soil’s chemistry and physics and are able to maintain natural chemical and physical fertility.
Long-term soil fertility mainly relies on consideration of the soil biological activity.
