Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Soil type affects how it retains water and nutrients.Photograph: iStock/Getty Images (Photograph: iStock/Getty Images) I often ...

Amanda Blum is a freelancer who writes about smart home technology, gardening, and food preservation. Previously, Amanda has worked as a technology strategist specializing in problem solving and ...

When farmers talk about their soil test results, the conversation often starts and ends with soil pH. While that one number is important to determining whether lime is needed, that insight is just a ...

Many nutrients in soil exist as salts, soluble and available for plant uptake. But when salts accumulate in excess, crop growth can decline. With more frequent surface flooding in coastal fields and ...

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Amanda Blum is a freelancer who writes about smart home technology, gardening, and food preservation. Previously, Amanda has worked as a technology strategist specializing in problem solving and ...

Now that we have experienced the first frost of the season, and the growing season for most garden and home landscape plants has come to an end, we as gardeners tend to start thinking about things we ...

Have you ever wondered what was so special about your dirt? Maybe you have a lawn, garden or some crop fields you are curious to learn more about. Or maybe you have been struggling to get growth in ...

This is an affordable, simple first step toward a lawn you'll be proud of.

Farmers in a time crunch have a new, speedier option for analyzing the texture and organic matter content of the soil on their fields. Gerson Drescher, assistant professor of soil fertility for the ...

Anxious about the rueful state of his peas, radishes and onions, Rod Marquardt arrived at the University of Minnesota’s soil testing laboratory with two lunch bag-sized containers of dirt. “We’re just ...