An important natural resource

Nurture your soil

Tom Tolputt
Tom Tolputt

Four simple soil assessments can be used to analyse soil health:

Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS)

VESS is designed to assesses soil structure based on the appearance and feel of soil. Soil structure is an indicator of soil health based on how ‘aggregated’ the soil is. Aggregation is the crumb-like structure found in biologically healthy soil.

Earthworm count

Infiltration rate

Slake test

If you’re not measuring it, you can’t manage it

Understand your soil

Germinating wheat seed showing good soil biology

Improve soil biology

The soil is home to vast numbers of organisms that play a critical role in soil function. To improve soil biology, the soil needs to be a hospitable place for these organisms to live and thrive. Our advice on land management will help improve your soil biology—and productivity.

Soil samples

Improve soil structure

Good soil structure allows aeration, water holding capacity (and water draining) and unrestricted root growth. Compacted soil with poor structure leads to a risk of reduced yields, as well as surface run-off. We can identify practices that will improve soil structure, overall soil health, and productivity.

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Building soil health from the ground up

Become economically and environmentally sustainable, in any agricultural system.