Hello, I would like to learn more about soil, can anyone recommend some reading on this topic. Cheers Kate
Teaming with microbes(lowenfels and lewis) Soil Food(jackie french). Natural Farming and One straw revolution (fukuoka). Dr Elaine Ingham(www.soilfoodweb.com.au/). Paul Staments,excellent mycologist. Good Luck
G'day Kate Welcome to the PRI Forum. One of the best (in relation to our part of the world) semi-technical websites I have come across is the DPI's aptly named: 'Soil'. I would also highly recommend Steve Solomon's 'Soil and Health Library': Be warned though, the above is a HUGE repository. Once you enter, you may never leave . Cheerio, Markos.
I'd also recommend doing some soil tests in different places - check out Rosemary Morrow's permaculture book - there is a description there of doing soil tests at home. And some dicussions here: https://forums.permaculture.org.au/showthread.php?5902-soil-types https://forums.permaculture.org.au/...oil-animal-and-insect-attacks-give-up-or-what
Some very good sugestions so far, I'd like to add these to the recomended reading list. Arden Andersen's 'Science in Agriculture' or his earlier work 'The anatomy of life and energy in Agriculture' 'Edaphos- Dynamics of a natural soil system' by Paul D. Sachs. An older ,but good one... 'Soil microorganisms and higher plants' Nikolai Krasilnikov You'll find it at Steve Solomon's soil and health library (see Marko's post above), and it's worth supporting financially so Steve can make more old books available. There are plenty more , but it depends how far you want to delve into the subject and what your approach might be... 'Conventional', 'organic', or a fusion of the two, biodynamic, natural...etc. either way the above publications will give a good grounding for any of them as far as the natural chemical and biological processes in soils.
Book and video by Neal Kinsey (both have the same title): Hands-On Agronomy: Understanding Soil Fertility and Fertilizer Use.
Yes, Hands on Agronomy is a good one. I have a signed copy in my library. I attended a seminar by Neal Kinsey about 10yrs ago. he knows his stuff. I've often thought that a 'translated' copy of the book would be good for folks in Aust. in Aust. we went metric about 40 odd yrs ago and we're used to working in hectares, litres, grams and metres. Kinsey's (Albrect's) system seems to work well though, with nice rounded numbers if working in acres, pounds, bushels, fl. ounces, inches, etc. eg. 2,000,000lb of soil over an acre to a depth of 6 3/4 inches.
I wonder what your interest is exactly. Do you need to know as much as any scientist or just enough to make your plants grow well? If the latter, the only book i can recommend is my book on composting which i feel tells me pretty much all i need to know about soil that i don't already know. This book is by Tim Marshall and i find it really helpful. It has quickly altered the way i am approaching my block of land. I now have compost piles all over my place ( which is 1 hectare) but there will be many more to come yet. Its easier to make a pile where you are going to use it than carting stuff all over the block back to compost central. But this might not be the sort of thing you need to know.
Hello hello, well if you are looking some video material... Let me introduce with one of favorites nptelhrd channel ))) Watch on indian intonation. Lecture - 8 Origin And Types of Rocks Lecture - 9 Origin And Types of Soils Its part of Civil - Engineering Geology
Check out Dr Christine Jones' article "Soil Carbon - can it save agriculture's bacon?" posted on this website. Fantastic. https://permaculture.org.au/2010/07/22/soil-carbon-can-it-save-agriculture’s-bacon/
