The soil health toolkit refers to a set of methods that were adapted by soil scientists from Colorado State University for use in rural settings.
The soil health toolkit team developed modified protocols of several important soil properties, including abundance and diversity of soil macrofauna, soil pH, active carbon or permanganate-oxidizable soil carbon (POXC), particulate organic matter (POM), soil aggregate stability, water infiltration, and soil available phosphorus.
Though all tests can be conducted in rural settings, the tests vary in complexity. Some, such as macrofauna, POM, texture, and pH, can be done directly with farmers, as we are doing for this work. Others, including soil aggregate stability, POXC, and soil available phosphorus, are better performed in a “mobile lab” setting, which has sufficient equipment and reagents to process a number of samples at once. In our case, a recent agriculture graduate will travel among the partner organizations to analyze POXC and soil available phosphorus on farmers’ archived samples.
Farmers’ individual test results can help them understand their soil’s health status compared to global and local standards. These results are also good for stimulating discussions about how farmers’ management practices may impact soil health. Additionally, once farmers have a baseline analysis of several important soil characteristics for their soil, their soils can be retested to assess whether changes to soil management practices have improved soil health.
For those interested in the simple tests done together with farmers, you can find more information under the protocols tab above.
For those interested in much more detailed information, please visit the cross-cutting soils project website: http://www.smallholder-sha.org/
Instructional videos on performing the tests can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/user/lloqalla/videos.
Soil data platform
The cross-cutting soils team has a soils data platform that collates soil health test data across regions. More information about what it is and how to join can be found in the attached files:
The following links to youtube video on the soils data platform process https://youtu.be/vRteo1ZPiOc