A quantitative tool kit for assessing soil health indicators for resource limited laboratories

Abstract

Soil health assessment is crucial for sustainable agriculture; however, farmers and their advisors can face barriers accessing traditional laboratory-based testing. To address this, we developed a low-cost soil health kit using readily available materials to provide quantitative results for selected soil physical, chemical and biological properties. The kit includes ten indicators adapted from established laboratory methods. We first evaluated the kit’s ability to detect differences in soil properties under different land uses, including rainforest, pasture, sugarcane, and banana farms. We then validated the kit’s sensitivity to farm management impacts on soil health, using soils from commercial banana farms with varying levels of vegetated ground cover. Differences were detected in nine of the ten soil properties included in the kit (e.g., P, pH, bulk density) across land uses and significant differences were detected in seven of the ten soil properties (e.g., labile carbon, ACE protein, moisture, β-glucosidase) among banana production soils with varying levels of ground cover. Correlation analyses revealed that the kit’s measurements of P, pH, and labile carbon significantly aligned with traditional laboratory methods (R = 0.81, R = 0.83, and R = 0.86, respectively), while there was a weaker correlation for nitrate nitrogen (R = 0.62). These findings highlight the kit's potential as a proxy to supplement standard laboratory measurements and its utility in assessing management-induced changes in soil health. The quantitative monitoring outcomes can support advisors, extension staff, and growers to make informed soil management decisions, particularly where access to laboratory facilities is limited or cost prohibitive.