Soil Structure Quotes

The soil is not a mass of dead debris, merely resulting from the physical and chemical weathering of rocks; it is a more or less homogeneous system which has resulted from the decomposition of plant and animal remains. It is teeming with life.

It helps to think of soil as a living organism covered with skin like a human. We can live with a certain percentage of our skin damaged, but if too high a percentage is damaged, we die. So, too, does soil and thus most life

Since chemical fertilizer burns out the soil organic matter, other farmers struggle with tilth, water retention, and basic soil nutrients. The soil gets harder and harder every year as the chemicals burn out the organic matter, which gives the soil its sponginess. One pound of organic matter holds four pounds of water. The best drought protection any farmer can acquire is more soil organic matter.

Topsoil is a place of digestion. It sucks and chews things into smaller pieces. When it's hungry, it turns grey and stony; when it's thirsty, it opens thousands of cracked lips. Subsoil is more skeletal: it doesn't digest.

Consider what each soil will bear, and what each refuses.

If you build up the soil with organic material, the plants will do just fine.

The linear, single species idea of farming is an assault on ecological function. Something's going to break down in that system - anything from soil structure, in economics... but where to start is with true ecological function.

Soil is an almost magical substance, a living system that transforms the materials it encounters.

That dark laboratory we call the soil.

I'd like to know about some of the things that they teach down there, like building a lake. If I ever wanted to build a lake, I'd like to know how to do it.

Soil is a living ecosystem, and is a farmer's most precious asset. A farmer's productive capacity is directly related to the health of his or her soil.

We're phenomenally blessed in the Walla Walla Valley. We have great, complex soil that's nutrient-rich but fairly porous.