Agronomy Handbook 2023: Part VII. Soil Health Management

Farmers, ranchers, market gardeners, and land managers must constantly assess and know their operation, values, and resource concerns in order to balance and achieve their overall objectives. For many people, soil is a starting point and basis for viability, profitability, sustainability, and regenerative agriculture. Soil is a foundational resource to farming, conservation, and health in the 21st century. Interest in the health of a soil and its quality and function as a holistic system has continued to grow among farmers, ranchers, gardeners, and land managers the past 30 years. Soil health is defined as the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem with integrated chemical, physical, biological, and ecological properties, processes, and boundaries, that sustains plants, animals, and humans (USDA-NRCS 2018; Doran et al. 1994). This publication reviews and discusses why soil health is critical, the characteristics of influence and consideration, the key soil management priorities, and four core soil health principles that should guide and inform different farm and land management practices as within a system.