Soil & Nutrient Network
Soil and Nutrient Network farms are taking a ‘before and after’ look at how to protect and improve farm soils and make the best use of both organic and inorganic fertilisers, saving money, benefitting yields and improving farm efficiency and resilience.
Improved soil and nutrient use could make your business more profitable, lower the farm carbon footprint and reduce diffuse pollution risks.
Even technically efficient farms can find small changes to current soil and nutrient management practices that could make a big difference.
Acidic soils could be affecting production on many Scottish farms. This is a conclusion in our "Report on Soil and Organic Materials Analysis from the Soil and Nutrient Network Farms 2016 – 2018". Of 273 soil samples from the host farms, almost half of analyses showed that the soils had a pH below 5.8, one third were between 5.8 and 6.2 and 18% were above pH 6.2. The optimum soil pH range to aim for is 6.0 to 6.2 on mineral soils to improve nutrient availability and crop yield. The full report is available to download using the link above.
Map showing Soil & Nutrient Network host farms
Current host farms are shown with large pins; previous hosts shown with dots
Find out more about our host farms
Useful Links
- A Report on Soil and Organic Materials Analysis from the Soil and Nutrient Network Farms 2016 – 2018
- Videos and podcasts
- Technical Notes
- Valuing Your Soils Booklet
- Scotland's Soils website
- Farming & Water Scotland website
- Farming For a Better Climate website
- Farmer’s guide to sourcing and using digestate and compost