Weller: NRCS wants single soil test to help farmers
January 09, 2015 |06:31 PM
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service hopes to develop a single soil test that can be used in any farmer’s field anywhere in the country and analyzed immediately to help the farmer determine what is needed to improve the soil, NRCS chief Jason Weller said this week at the International Year of Soils launch at USDA headquarters.
Jason Weller
A single test is controversial among conservationists and scientists, Weller noted in an interview, but a single test under which the soil could be analyzed in a field would be much more efficient than the current practice of sending soil samples to a laboratory and waiting a month for analysis.
Developing a test that can work in all types of soils in all parts of the country will be difficult, Weller said, but NRCS will help through its innovation grants program, Weller said.
“It has to work in Maine, Arizona, and Texas,” even though “there are 22,000 different soil types,” Weller said.
One possibility, Weller said, is a test developed by Rick Haney, an Agricultural Research Service researcher. (See link.)
The most important question about soil quality, Weller said, is carbon content, but the test could also show other soil qualities.
Weller said he is worried about American soil because “to an extent, we have been mining the carbon out of the soils for the past century.”
The International Years of Soils, he noted, is an opportunity to reverse that practice. The Agriculture Department’s commitment to soil quality goes back even before the establishment of the Soil Conservation Service, to the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils.
During this year, Weller said, he wants to help NRCS staff “get away from acronyms” and “reconnect our field capacity back to what they were born to do — work with farmers to manage their land properly.”
▪ United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization — Global Soil Partnership
▪ Soil Science Society of America
▪ USDA blog — Remembering Dr. Charles E. Kellogg, Soil Scientist and Chief of USDA’s Bureau of Chemistry and Soils
▪ USDA blog — Event at USDA Ushers in 2015 as the International Year of Soils
A single test is controversial among conservationists and scientists, Weller noted in an interview, but a single test under which the soil could be analyzed in a field would be much more efficient than the current practice of sending soil samples to a laboratory and waiting a month for analysis.
Developing a test that can work in all types of soils in all parts of the country will be difficult, Weller said, but NRCS will help through its innovation grants program, Weller said.
“It has to work in Maine, Arizona, and Texas,” even though “there are 22,000 different soil types,” Weller said.
One possibility, Weller said, is a test developed by Rick Haney, an Agricultural Research Service researcher. (See link.)
The most important question about soil quality, Weller said, is carbon content, but the test could also show other soil qualities.
Weller said he is worried about American soil because “to an extent, we have been mining the carbon out of the soils for the past century.”
The International Years of Soils, he noted, is an opportunity to reverse that practice. The Agriculture Department’s commitment to soil quality goes back even before the establishment of the Soil Conservation Service, to the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils.
During this year, Weller said, he wants to help NRCS staff “get away from acronyms” and “reconnect our field capacity back to what they were born to do — work with farmers to manage their land properly.”
▪ United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization — Global Soil Partnership
▪ Soil Science Society of America
▪ USDA blog — Remembering Dr. Charles E. Kellogg, Soil Scientist and Chief of USDA’s Bureau of Chemistry and Soils
▪ USDA blog — Event at USDA Ushers in 2015 as the International Year of Soils
