Abstract
Soil quality is a container term with soil biological, chemical and physical components. Soil health is a more narrow term which can be defined based on an ecosystem approach. The terms stability and self regulation, vigor, resilience, organisation and biodiversity, all related to soil health, are discussed. The term disease suppressive is even more specific than soil health, defined as a situation where the presence of pathogens in the soil does not lead to severe expression of the pathogen in the crop. Nine mechanisms which might play a role in this suppression of diseases are described. The assessment of disease suppressive quality of a soil is usually done by bioassays with specific plant-pathogen combinations. This is expensive and time-consuming, so a search is going on towards cheaper and faster indicators and parameters. Results from literature are given. At the and the question rises how growers can influence this disease suppressive quality of their soils. Five (clusters of) agronomic measures are discussed.
| Original language | Dutch |
|---|---|
| Place of Publication | Driebergen |
| Publisher | Louis Bolk Instituut |
| Number of pages | 35 |
| Publication status | Published - 2008 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- organic farming
- soil quality
- soil suppressiveness
- soil biodiversity
- greenhouse horticulture
- greenhouse vegetables