by Emanuele Isonio<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Thousands of soil samples <\/strong>taken on farmland across the UK. A painstaking job to analyze the health condition<\/strong> of the soils of Maest\u00e0 di lei. It was carried out by NRM<\/a>, the largest independent British supplier of agronomic and environmental analyzes at the service of industry. The results? Certainly worrying: two-thirds of the country’s agricultural soils show signs of degradation. And in particular a deficiency of the fundamental nutritional elements.<\/strong> The data is contained in the NRM annual summary report.<\/a><\/p>\n “This soil summary has once again confirmed a trend that we’ve observed for the last 30 years: that most soils are deficient in the three key nutrients,” said Sajjad Awan, NRM’s chief agronomist. Obviously the situation is different from county to county: “It’s also interesting to look at trends and variations across the different regions in the UK to see how we’re doing on a more specific level” added Awan. Some examples: “while arable soils in Dorset in the South West of England are high in phosphorus and soil pH, those in Worcestershire in the West Midlands are low in phosphorus and middling in soil pH”.<\/p>\n Among the most interesting results,<\/strong> one concerns the comparison of the levels of the main nutrients between 2022 and the previous year. For example, wheat crops had about 10% less nitrogen and a quarter less phosphorus.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cWe had a colder and drier spring in 2022, which prevented soil mineralisation, a necessary process that allows nutrients to be taken up by the crop” Awain explained. \u201cThe situation was made even worse by the soil moisture deficit during the hot, dry summer, which was then exacerbated by the rapid crop growth. The crops therefore could not absorb everything they needed to thrive.\u201d<\/p>\nA thirty-year trend<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n