Features
From the Editor: Digging deep into soil fertility and crop nutrition

“Essentially, all life depends upon the soil. There can be no life without soil and no soil without life; they have evolved together.”

This quote is attributed to Dr. Charles E. Kellogg, a former soil scientist and chief of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, in the USDA’s 1938 Yearbook of Agriculture – long before any of the research we report on in this issue came to fruition (or was even heading toward the research pipeline).

Imagine how amazed Kellogg would be if he came across this digital edition (and I’m only talking about the stories included – I won’t even get in to how technology has changed since he left the earth). But his words still remain true: there can be no life without soil and no soil without life, and our stories in this issue, the third installment of our summer Focus On digital edition series, dig deeper (pun intended) into the importance of soil fertility and proper crop nutrition.

As you move through the season, we hope you’re inspired by the research and trial results you’ll read about in these pages. There’s much to be done this time of year, but taking care of the soil that’s working so hard to help your crops grow still needs to be a priority.