Organic Amendment Management of Soils

1 day course

Course overview

Sustainable intensification of agriculture as a concept aims to harmonise food production to feed a growing global population and ensure minimal damage to the environment. This is a challenging task but an essential one that will affect all of us. In order to achieve this, land managers need to be more efficient in managing water, soil and fertiliser resources. An approach to put this into practice is to increase our reliance on organic amendments in response to increasing fertiliser price and reducing supply of certain fertilisers (such as phosphorus). Organic amendments can provide a valuable resource of nutrients to meet crop requirements but needs to be managed in an efficient manner to ensure there is no compromise to yields.

Course description

• Introduction to sustainable intensification of agriculture – approach and its challenges
• Available tools to manage decision support on application of organic amendments
• Nutrient cycling in soils – principles and soil/crop interactions to harness nutrient supply from organic amendments
• Available options from various organic amendments and competition arising to manage supply and availability of land bank to maximise yield
• Strategies to reduce pollution – associated with farm waste management and Nitrate Vulnerable Zone
• Challenges to current practice – yield plateau, phosphorus supply to meet crop response, soil tests for measuring nutrients.

On successful completion of this module the delegate will be able to:

• Identify available organic amendment supply, their nutrient contents and risks associated with their application to land
• Explore available tools to implement proper management of nutrients in order to comply with current soil protection strategies
• Implement suitable strategies to reduce pollution in soils taking into account the associated risks with applying organic amendments
• Challenge current practices on nutrient management from organic amendments.

Acreditation

Advanced AgriFood Training Partnership (AATP) funded by BBRSC.
Delegates can claim 6 BASIS CPD points providing they attend the workshop in full.