With macropores and micropores (openings) retaining air and water inside a mineral matrix (bricks) and SOM matrix (mortar), the soil aggregate serves as a home for soil life. Consolidation lessens porosity. When it rains, macropores (more than.08mm) store the water and then allow it to flow freely. As a result, air can enter the soil again, helping to oxygenate it for aerobic processes like decomposition.
Water is stored for longer in micropores (less than.08mm) for crops. Even activated carbon-containing soils have ultra-micropores!
Overview of Aggregates
When considering the edges and planes of diverse mineral and biological elements, soil aggregates have enormous (yet minuscule) surface areas. These surfaces offer locations for molecular cohesion inside porous soil spaces as well as adherence of water molecules and nutrient ions to soil surfaces.
High cation exchange capacity can be found in well-aggregated soils (CEC). As a result, they are more nutrient- and water-efficient than soils with low CEC.
In addition to thriving in these soils, soil life also connects the soil's water, nutrient, and communication routes by excreting micromanure, fixing nitrogen directly from the atmosphere, and breaking down organic matter for decomposition.
We restore nitrogen-fixing bacteria, mycorrhizal fungi, and other beneficial creatures by creating habitat below the surface.
How to Improve Soil with Tools
Understanding how to use machinery to improve soil is just as important as understanding how to minimize damage to soil and soil aggregates from equipment (which is what S4-tillage is all about). If your equipment promotes more soil-beneficial processes each year, it can help your soil get better.
Spreader: Compost application is a fantastic approach to improve and strengthen soil health. Organic matter in soil is what soil organisms eat and live in (SOM). SOM aids in the storage and cycling of nutrients and water.
Flail Mower: Effective management of crop trash, green manure, and cover crops adds SOM, nutrients, and mulch to the soil.
Compost, crop, and cover crop fragments are incorporated into the soil using a rear-tine tiller. The soil life in the A horizon may absorb and alter oxygen- and debris-rich material thanks to shallow introduction.
Power harrows can be utilized to work further into the soil profile without blending the A and B horizons because they don't invert the soil. Thus, the soil maintains a higher level of self-regulation. Even the prairies, which had excellent soil, were disturbed by bison.
With in-place compost on the walkways, Power Ridger restores Permabeds. By concentrating antagonistic behavior in routes, we keep the bed top ecology mimicking a natural soil.
To protect soil from extremes in temperature, heavy rainfall, snowmelt erosion, and mechanical compaction, forests and grasslands are mulched in situ with leaf litter using a roller or chopper. The trash also prevents weed growth!