Subsoil: The term implies tilling in an out-of-sight area called the “subsoil.” Building these zones may be the most important tillage practice, and it also may be the least understood. To understand why it is necessary to till the subsoil, we must first look under the ground into the real world of agriculture.
Adequate levels of functional organic matter and a robust soil digestive system are sorely lacking in most all agricultural soils. This lack of humic substances and biology significantly reduces a soil’s water-holding capacity and the ability to release nutrients, all of which leads to large losses in crop quality and yield.
As growers, we must do our part in mitigating our impact on natural systems by taking every opportunity to use naturally occurring N and cease the use of industrially created N. There are five main ways we can get the nitrogen we need to grow our crops without resorting to man-made N. The good news is that you will be raising healthier, more valuable crops in the process of using nature’s supply of N and can achieve comparable yields (or even greater yields).
