Soil life functions

Soil life is made up of bacteria, fungi, nematodes and many more organisms.
Soil life has a major impact on plant growth. Based on organic manure, crop residues and green manures, soil life has the task of releasing nutrients that are essential for plants.

In addition, soil life has even more functions.
Soil life takes care of:

• The breakdown of plant residues, manure and dead soil organisms and the release of nutrients from them (mineralisation)
• The build-up of organic matter that decomposes slowly (humus build-up)
• Building a good soil structure
  • Loosening excessively compact soil by tunnelling passages
  • Forming mucilage that glues soil particles together (aggregate formation)
  • Mixing organic and inorganic soil components
• Reducing the number of pathogenic organisms