Soil research for cereals and oilseeds

We invest in evidence-based information and tools to guide soil-management decisions that support crop productivity and protect the environment.

Soil health is at the heart of productive crop-based systems. It is also at the centre of government schemes that reward environmental land management. A major challenge for soil management is the production of guidance that can be tailored to fit all farming situations.

Soils form over thousands of years through local interactions of climate, geology, hydrology, and management. Physical and chemical alteration (weathering) break down parent materials (solid rocks and drift deposits). Finally, biological cycles of growth and decay produce the extra critical ingredient: organic matter. As a result, each field has unique soils.

AHDB research focuses on:

• Improving understanding of the biological, chemical and physical components of soil health
• Producing practical ways to measure and monitor soil health
• Delivering guidance on how to maintain and improve soil health

Mass grant funding for field drainage dried up in the 1980s. Even well-maintained drains installed back then will now be creaking and groaning, especially when exposed to extreme wet weather.

The GWCT Allerton Project recently ripped up its historic drains in half of an 8-ha arable field (at its Loddington site in Leicestershire) and replaced it with a modern drainage system. This provides a great opportunity to assess the differences between old and new. AHDB and others are funding monitoring of the two field halves over three cropping seasons (starting in the 2025/26 season). The trial will also overlay direct-drilled and ploughed treatments. The researchers will take comprehensive measurements, including those associated with key soil-health indicators, nutrient and pesticide levels in drainage waters, and field productivity. Ultimately, the work will quantify the impact of new drainage schemes.

Developed as part of the AHDB/BBRO Soil Biology and Soil Health Partnership, the soil health scorecard provides a consistent way to track changes to soil health on a rotational basis (every 4 to 5 years). It has been relatively well received, partly because it puts practical indicators at the heart of the approach. The scorecard features a simple traffic-light system (based on benchmark values for each indicator) that highlights potential soil issues and suggests ways address them.

In autumn 2025, a new AHDB-funded desk study got underway to explore more regular (early) soil health monitoring (on an annual or seasonal basis). The multidisciplinary team has started to identify candidate early indicators of soil health. The researchers will use published evidence and consultation (with experts, commercial laboratories, agronomists, farm advisors and other industry stakeholders) to gather evidence on the potential usefulness of these early indicators to UK agriculture.

For the top three ranked indicators, detailed guidance will be produced, based on rates of change and thresholds, which can account for key variables, such as soil texture, climate and cropping system. The intention is to develop guidance that is complementary to the traffic-light approach in the current soil health scorecard.

Finally, the research will provide a comprehensive summary of the state of evidence for all indicators considered in the project, as well as highlight knowledge gaps.

Information on all soil research projects is available in our research archive:

• In the ‘Sector’ drop-down box, select ‘Cereals & Oilseeds’
• In the ‘Topic’ drop-down box, select ‘Soil management’

Note: A report is submitted at the end of each project. After review (which can take several weeks), the final project report is published on the corresponding project page. At this stage, the project is official complete.