Publication
Which management practices influence soil health in Midwest organic corn systems?
Authors
Christine Sprunger, assistant professor, School of Environment and Natural Resources (SENR)
Steve Culman, associate professor and State Specialist, Soil Fertility, SENR
Leonardo Diess, postdoctoral researcher, SENR
Doug Jackson-Smith, associate director and professor, Water Security, SENR
Caroline Brock, assistant professor, University of Missouri Columbia
Quick Take
Organic farmers take a holistic approach to managing soil health. This means they balance all sorts of factors related to soil health, such as crop diversity, tillage, manure use, plant rotation, soil balancing, and more. Researchers from the School of Environment and Natural Resources at the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences wanted to find out how each of these management strategies influenced soil health in the eastern Corn Belt, so they sent out a mail-in survey to producers in that region.
Results
The survey pointed to a few key conclusions, both positive and negative.
- While crop diversity can be beneficial for organic farming operations, it also leads to more tillage—which negatively impacts soil health overall.
- The use of perennials in crop rotation, meanwhile, was found to have a positive effect on soil health.
- The practice of soil balancing—which refers to balancing the levels of cations in the soil as an alternative to fertilizer use—was found to have no significant influence on soil health.
- Researchers also found that soil texture played a larger role in determining soil health than previously thought, and for this reason they suggested that more texture data be taken into account going forward.
Citation
Sprunger, CD, Culman, SW, Deiss, L, Brock, C, Jackson-Smith, D. Which management practices influence soil health in Midwest organic corn systems? Agronomy Journal 2021; 1– 19. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.20786