Developing standard protocols for soil quality monitoring and assessment

Developing standard protocols for soil quality monitoring and assessment

Bationo, A. Book author
Waswa, B. Book author
Okeyo, J.M. Book author
Maina, F. Book author
Kihara, J.M. Book author

Dordrecht Springer Science + Business Media Germany

2011

p.833-842

EAM0444

Africa’s agricultural viability and food security depend heavily on its soil quality. However, while approaches to measuring air and water quality are widely established, standardized, publiclyavailable\n soil quality assessment protocols are largely non-existent. This chapter describes the process we have used in selecting and developing a set of inexpensive, agronomically meaningful, low-infrastructurerequiring indicators of soil quality (SQ), which make up the Cornell Soil Health Test (CSHT). In 2006, the CSHT was made available to the public in New York State (NYS), United States, similar to the widely available soil nutrient tests. Case studies show the CSHT’s success at measuring constraints in agronomically essential soil processes and differences between management practices in NYS. It thus helps farmers to specifically target management practices to alleviate quantified constraints. Such indicators have the potential to be developed into standardized soil quality tests\n for use by African agricultural non-governmental and government organizations and larger commercial farmers to better understand agricultural problems related to soil constraints and to develop management solutions. Low cost and infrastructure requirements make these tests excellent tools for numerous low-budget extension and NGO-based experiments established in collaboration with local small farmers, as well as to quantify the status and trends of soil degradation at regional and national scales.

Innovations as key to the green revolution in Africa vol.1

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