SOIL SCIENCE AS A BASIC SCIENCE

Abstract

Soil science has evolved along two tracks. The agricultural research establishment has fostered the trial-and-error empirical approach which has led to great benefits to agriculture but has been less effective at developing soil science as a science. Sub-disciplines of soil science are now moving forward to develop a better fundamental understanding of the many complex processes occurring in the soil. However, we are not effectively weaving the different sub-disciplines together. If we are to develop healthily as an independent science, rather than a highly specialized collection of applied physicists, chemists, and biologists, we need to give more attention to this integration. Soil Science, which has played an important role in bringing our science this far, could play an even more significant role if it elected to undertake this integrative role.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 22 citations exist upstream.