"Soil Health - the capacity of soil to function as a vital living system"

The health of our soils has become a major issue for us all with the realisation of its fundamental importance for the health of our ecosystems. Not only is soil important in providing our basic needs of food and fibre but it also performs life support mechanisms in protecting waters and the food chain from pollutants and is both a sink and source of compounds that regulate our climate. Life in the soil also offers a new scientific frontier, as exemplified by discoveries of the true scale of the diversity of soil microorganisms. Molecular biology techniques are driving these new discoveries and are revealing hitherto unknown diversity as well as providing ways to ‘engineer’ the soil/plant system to enhance the quality of our environment.

The Soil Health Initiative was established to exploit these new techniques and to address associated key scientific issues. Recent disease outbreaks have shown how vulnerable we still are to pathogenic microorganisms and pathogen survival, persistence and transport in soil is being investig ated. The availability and potential toxicity of pollutants in soil is being addressed by developing novel fungal bioassays, which use bioluminescence to report on fungal activity. Two of the projects address the diversity of microorganisms in soil, one in relation to the microbial diversity associated with plants and especially roots and the other dealing with fungi and their role in decomposition and the cycling of nutrients. Exploring and quantifying this diversity not only provides greater understanding and possible early indicators of stress on our ecosystems but also represents an opportunity to discover novel attributes and genes that may have biotechnological applications.

Four research fellows (Dr Jenny Ritchie, Dr Hedda Weitz, Dr Ed Moore and Dr Ian Anderson) have been employed by the Soil Health Initiative to advance the four strategic research themes identified by the steering group and their work and outputs are described in the following pages.                                                                               

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