soil health
Dirt's living condition
Soil health is the capacity of soil to function as a living ecosystem—supporting plant growth, filtering water, cycling nutrients, and sustaining biological activity.
Healthy soil has good structure, adequate organic matter, and thriving communities of microorganisms, earthworms, and fungi.
The term reflects a shift from treating soil as inert dirt to understanding it as a complex system: Farmers are adopting cover crops to improve soil health.
Poor soil health leads to erosion, compaction, and declining yields.
- organic matterMaterial from living sources
- decompositionBreakdown into simpler parts
- earthwormsSoil-dwelling segmented invertebrates
- biodiversityRange of life forms
- humusDecayed organic soil matter
porosity · crop rotation · organic farming · microbes · permaculture · carbon sequestration · nitrogen fixation · root zone · compaction · pH levels · nutrients · carbon · fertile · bacteria · mulch · ground cover · cultivation · aeration
- ecologyhabitat, ecosystem, balance, niche, food webs
- environmentalismecology, conservationism, recycling bins, campaigner, environmentalism
- gardeninggardener, gardening, flowers, seeds, plants
- horticulturehorticulture, gardening, cultivation, planting, seeds
- plant carewatering, fertilizing, fertilizer, pruning, transplanting
- Agriculture & Nutritioncrops, gardens, seeds, harvest, vegetables
soil healthsoil depletion
Loss of ground fertility
dead soil · barren soil · depleted soil · toxic soil · eroded soil
soil healthdesertification
Land becoming barren, infertile
badlands · wasteland · blight · erosion · overfarming