You might know soil remembers and has a long memory but do you know soils continually tell stories? Soils often tell an overarching story based on history and geology that includes how soils were formed due to factors such as parent material, climate, landscape position, time, and the presence or absence of soil organisms. Current and past management of topsoil and the soil ecosystem adds new chapters to a soil's history and memory.

Clare Tallamy, a recent graduate of Virginia Tech's School of Plant and Environmental Sciences (SPES), shared several stories from her experience as a member of Virginia Tech's Soil Judging Team and the team's time in many different soil pits in Virginia and across the U.S. and world. In Part I, Clare described how a soil pit is dug and shared a way to understand a soil profile. In this episode, Clare explains further how soil remembers but also how a soil's story can be adversely altered through mismanagement and neglect or significantly improved by following core soil health principles that enhance overall soil biology and focus on what you can change in the system.

For more details about Virginia Tech's Soil Judging Team and how soil judging in various agricultural and engineering contexts, please visit https://gobblerconnect.vt.edu/organization/soiljudging.

To learn about the long memory of soil, please refer to Dr. Henry Janzen's recent Soil Science Society of America Journal article titled, 'The Soil Remembers' at https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2136/sssaj2016.05.0143

Learn more about the Virginia Soil Health Coalition, join the 4 the Soil conversation, and read the latest Soil Health Tip Tuesday blog post at https://www.virginiasoilhealth.org/ and https://www.4thesoil.org.

4 the Soil: A Conversation is made possible with funding support from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and The Agua Fund. Other partners include the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service; Virginia Cooperative Extension; Virginia State University; Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation; and partners of the Virginia Soil Health Coalition.

Disclaimer: Views expressed on this podcast are those of each individual guest.

To download a copy of this, or any other show, visit the website 4thesoil.org. Music used during today’s program is courtesy of the Flip Charts. All rights reserved. 4 the Soil: A Conversation is produced by On the Farm Radio in collaboration with Virginia Tech. The host and co-hosts are Jeff Ishee, Mary Sketch Bryant, and Eric Bendfeldt.