Soil Health

John Milburn
06:25 minutes    Victorian
vegetable growers reflect on soil-care practices of the past including the use of
crop rotations, animal manures, composts and cover crops.

Advances in mechanised equipment after WWII made it possible
to quickly work in crop trash and enabled multiple
cropping of the same piece of land.

Intensification of production raised crop yeilds dramatically but
also led to difficulties with soil workability & drainage and more frequent problems with soil-borne pests and diseases such as nematodes, fusarium and club
root.

20 years on, soil health has become widely recognised as a key indicator
of sustainable farming systems and is the subject of a major soil health program funded
through the National Vegetable R&D
.

Interviews with Jack Walker, Luis
Gazzola, John Milburn, Rob Allen, Angelo Taranto, Keith Allen, Peter
Schreurs and Les Giroud.

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