Organic soil balance is the key to improve any soil

Achieving truly organic soil balance is not always straightforward, but it is easy enough to understand. Soil is a living system, which means that it cannot be managed with just a few rules-of-thumb and a couple of handfuls of fertilizer.

The key is to recognize that there are three basic components of every soil - Physics, Chemistry and Biology. However, proper balance begins with soil physics - not nutrients. This aspect of soil balance involves things like soil structure, moisture retention and so on. These things define the condition of the physical environment upon which plant roots and all other soil organisms depend. No amount of fertilizer can make up for poor soil structure, so this aspect of the soil system must be addressed before anything else. Improving the physical environment of the soil requires getting the proportions of five key elements right - Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium, Potassium and Hydrogen. However, people get confused because these elements are also plant nutrients.

The essential plant nutrients also have an ideal set of balance proportions (depending on the plants being grown), but this is different and separate from soil physics. The fact that elements like Calcium and Potassium can have two distinct functions in the soil only emphasizes that organic soil is a living system. However, one question that people often ask is whether organic fertilizer is really better than chemical fertilizer. The answer is that it all depends on the state of balance in the soil.

The last component is soil biology. However, the important thing to realize here is that biology is reliant upon both soil structure and available nutrients.

This illustrates the point that in addition to the soil balance relationships within each of these components, there is a balance that exists between the three components as well. So a well-balanced organic soil is one that is well balanced in terms of physics, chemistry, biology and in balance between these three components as well.