Soil is often seen as ‘just dirt’ with no visible life within it. But when you look deeper into it, you realise how interesting and amazing soil life really is.
One mind-blowing fact from a recent study suggests that more than half of life on Earth dwells within our soil, making it the most biodiverse habitat on the planet.
This includes around 2 million species of arthropod, such as mites and springtails and 6,000 species of worm. Add to that the 430 million species of bacteria and 5.6 million species of fungi which make soil their home and you’ll begin to understand what’s really going on underneath our feet!
You can find out more in this fascinating article: (More than half of life on Earth is found in soil – here’s why that’s important (theconversation.com)
That research makes soil more biodiverse than the Amazon rainforest. And that’s any soil, we’re not just talking about tropical rainforest soil, even your back garden soil can be full of tiny life.
Really interesting creatures like pseudoscorpions, tiny aggressive predators, and springtails, which live up to their name by being able to launch themselves over 100 times their body length, plus super abundant micro-organisms are all living in soil.
We know so little about them at present, but they are so interesting and so important for life on earth. That’s why it’s important for groundworkers and the landscape industry to change the way they view soil as a disposable resource that often gets taken away as waste and replaced, sadly losing all that soil life that is keeping our ecosystems running.
Above-ground habitats won’t thrive without healthy soil to sustain them, and this all works to our advantage because we appreciate beautiful planting schemes, we need carbon sequestration, better water management, and healthy agricultural systems: all of which rely on healthy soil.
At Wildflower Turf Ltd, we are encouraging people to consider soil testing prior to wildflower installation, to ensure good soil health as well as longevity of the habitat with appropriate species. Your soil determines what kind of habitat you can achieve and plays a large part in the long-term resilience of that habitat. Soil assessments, requirements, and ground preparation are all part of our training programmes.
Soil improvement is one of the many benefits of wildflower installations and can be achieved using either Wildflower Turf ®, which has the benefit of rooting in quickly to provide those benefits on a faster timescale, and Meadowscape Pro™, which aims to replicate an ideal soil environment for good germination and early plant development. Meadowscape Pro and wildflower seeding methods also need minimal-to-zero disturbance of the soil, keeping the existing soil microbiome intact.
Myself and other industry experts sowed the seeds for better understanding of the importance of soil when we took part in SoilsCon 2024 – a high-profile conference focusing on approaches and solutions to key soil issues and challenges. I joined fellow industry experts at the event in Oxfordshire to speak about the functions of soil and their key role in delivering biodiversity net gain (BNG), carbon capture, and water management:
- Biodiversity is more important than ever. We are facing a biodiversity loss crisis globally, with one in 6 species being at risk in Britain. 97% of wildflower meadows have been lost since 1930, which is a great shame because they are beautiful environments, but importantly they are also extremely biodiverse. So reintroducing wildflowers is an excellent method for mediation of biodiversity loss. Our research suggests that we can also improve soil biodiversity through increasing the diversity of above-ground species. A relationship between species richness above ground and microbial biomass in the soil has been shown, so the more diverse your plant community, the more microbes and fungi you have in your soil, and therefore the healthier and more biodiverse your soil ecosystem: double the benefit to biodiversity.
- Carbon sequestration: Species-rich grasslands and meadows can store huge amounts of carbon – and soil is one of the most overlooked carbon sinks, with some of the highest carbon storage potential. It’s estimated that soils store three times as much carbon as the atmosphere. This is because the plants are transforming it from the air via photosynthesis into carbohydrates, like starches and sugars. When there is a healthy relationship with soil mycorrhizae and bacteria, these carbon molecules are quickly transferred from the plants via their roots and into the soil, where it is very likely to stay unless the soil is disturbed. Boosting the fungal abundance by increasing plant diversity will allow even more carbon storage: one third of annual global carbon emissions can be stored by fungi in the soil. The better the relationship between those plants and the soil microbiome, the better the exchange of carbon from air to plant to soil, and the better the carbon drawdown. Grasslands are often considered more reliable carbon stores than woodland because carbon is securely stored below ground.
- Water management: Soil health is often underappreciated for its contribution to managing water. Wildflowers have a double impact. Firstly, wildflower roots physically alter the structure of the soil – some common wildflowers have deep tap roots which allow water to percolate deep into the ground, and there are also species with horizontal-growing stolons and various levels of meshing root systems, which hold the soil together, preventing erosion. All of this allows rainwater to penetrate the soil rather than accumulating at the surface, resulting in exceedance flows. Secondly, studies have shown that soil that is full of microbial life will have greater porosity, greater infiltration capacity and hydraulic conductivity. They will also be more resilient to drought.
It was fantastic to see such enthusiasm for soil and growing understanding of soil science among those in the industry at SoilsCon 2024, but we have a responsibility to spread the message further so that more people see the value of life in the earth.
By Helen Simmen, Research and Development, Wildflower Turf Ltd