Arable crops

Making Your Soils More Resilient

26th Nov 2025

2025 is almost over already, with a lot of the field work complete the next few weeks is a good time to look at your soil results to help plan.

UK soils have changed a lot in the last few decades; whether it’s sulphur deficiency levels found in soils sampled or low average organic matter levels across arable land. The importance of taking a soil sample is well-documented, but should you be investing in more than just basic soil analysis?

The basic analysis will give you P, K, Mg and pH; which is a good start but what about micronutrients, organic matter and soil microbial activity? All are important to plant nutrition and you may be unaware that your soils are low in one or more of these elements, a broad-spectrum analysis + soil health will give you this information to enable you to manage them.

With sustainability in mind, we first need to be able to monitor our soils and pick up on factors indicative of its health before we start changing practices. Organic matter (OM) is a key indicator of soil fertility through retention of nutrients and ability to feed beneficial microorganisms in the soil. OM can take a while to build but you need to know your starting point so that you can monitor your progress of building the levels within your soils.

Another important aspect of soil health are the microorganisms within that are key to having a fertile, productive asset to work with. By carrying out a Solvita test you can monitor the level of respiration within the soil, which is an indicator of the amount of microorganisms present.

Once you have base-line levels for OM and microorganisms then you can try different practices to see how they can help increase the levels of each and work towards a more resilient soil. This will mean better nutrient use efficiency, as well as other key benefits to your crop’s productivity.