An impact of organic farming on soil quality

This work focuses on the system of organic agriculture and its impact on soil quality. It compares organic farming system with conventional. Both these systems are briefly described. There is also a list of soil quality indicators used for the soil quality is evaluation. The results of scientific studies, which dealt with different farming systems and their effects on soil properties, were discussed and evaluated. Quality and fertile soil is crucial for production systems, however to define what means quality soil is very difficult. Therefore the number of quality indicators were established. The indicators can be grouped by their nature of soil properties they assess, such as physical, chemical and biological. Different techniques are adopted for soil quality evaluation. Soil quality is affected by a lot of different factors. Anthropogenic activities are often considered as one of the most influential factor. The loss of soil fertility as well as other physical, chemical or biological deterioration of soil properties is called soil degradation. The results of this study shown that careful tillage in organic farming could have positive effect or no effect on the biological and physical properties of soils. For some experiments there was an increased amount of soil organisms. In the most experiments, application of organic fertilizers caused increase of organic matter and other essential nutrients. We conclude that under certain conditions with respect for the principles of organic farming the soil quality can be preserved or even improved, but in a longer timeframe