Project Coordinator:
John Idowu (soilhealth@cornell.edu)

Project Leaders:
George Abawi (gsa1@cornell.edu)

Harold van Es (hmv1@cornell.edu)

David Wolfe (dww5@cornell.edu)

What is Soil Health?

Soil health describes the capacity of a soil to be used productively without adversely effecting its future productivity, the ecosystem and the environment. Soil health emphasizes the integration of biological with chemical and physical measures of soil quality that affect farmers profits and the environment.

Soil health deals with both inherent and dynamic soil quality. The former relates to the natural (genetic) characteristics of the soil (e.g., texture), which are the result of soil-forming factors. They are generally represented in soil surveys and generally cannot easily be amended. On the other hand, the dynamic soil quality component is readily affected by management practices and relates to the levels of compaction, biological functioning, root proliferation, etc. The dynamic component is of most interest to growers because good management allows the soil to come to its full potential. The inherent and dynamic soil quality components do interact, however, as some soil types are much more susceptible to degradation and unforgiving of poor management than others.