Farmers across the country are being urged to test their soil and establish a baseline that will help improve soil health ahead of a new 2022 standard.

As a global market leaders in certain testing and laboratory services, Eurofins Scientific draws on the latest developments in the field of biotechnology and analytical chemistry to offer analytical solutions via a very large range of testing methods.

The Arable Soil Standard was set out in June, 2021 as part of the government’s Environmental Land Management (ELM) and Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) plans. So now farmers are being urged to test soil more regularly to identify organic matter content before adding inputs, or adjusting their rotation.

“The new standards will be more easily achieved if farmers accurately analyse their soil before making changes to the rotation or farming methods," commented Eurofins Agro managing director, Daniel Robinson.

"Understanding the soil status at the start of the process, the baselines, helps to provide the data needed to take the correct actions. Our tests provide chemical, physical, and biological insight, offering farmers a better way to monitor, manage and improve the health and fertility of their soil ahead of these new land management targets,” he says.

Eurofins has three new products to help farmers and agronomists understand soil in a more detailed way – Fertilisation Manager, measures soil fertility; Soil Crop Monitor and Soil Life Monitor provide chemical, physical, and biological insight, offering farmers a better way to monitor, manage and improve the health and fertility of their soil.

“Fertilisation Manager also measures the chemical values of macro and micronutrients,” added Mr Robinson. “Detailed organic matter and carbon fractions, as well as the overall structure of the soil is also analysed in conjunction with biological components such as fungi and bacteria."

The microbial biomass from the sample will help farmers to understand the sensitivity of the soil to conventional farming methods, such as ploughing.

The number and nature of the bacteria present in a soil sample will also facilitate the accurate calculation of what nutrients need to be added to the soil to optimise plant health and growth.

Soil Crop Monitor offers the most accurate means of testing soil during a growing season and measures the plant available nutrients and the nutrients absorbed by the crop.

Soil Life Monitor, determines the total microbial biomass, fungi, bacteria and protozoa in soil samples. It also identifies some physical characteristics such as pH and the quality of organic matter.