Soil Health Can Contribute to Climate Change and Drought Adaptation.

Climate change poses major challenges to agriculture. Those challenges differ by region and climate model but consist of changes in rainfall pattern and increased number and intensity of storms, among others. Threats and recent occurrences include flooding, drought, and crop damage. The soil function most influential in the mitigation of precipitation changes is water partitioning. Water partitioning comprises infiltration, water holding capacity, and drainage, and is influenced by soil organic matter, surface residue, porosity, soil depth, and texture. Many of these properties and processes are influenced by management, such as soil organic matter, soil cover, and soil structure, and can increase resistance and resilience to climate change effects. Practices that increase organic matter, keep residues on the soil, and avoid or reduce tillage or compaction will increase this soil function. In areas experiencing warmer, more humid climates, a proliferation of crop disease is likely without integrating agroecological principles, which includes building soil health, into management decisions. To ensure successful adaptation of agriculture to climate change, we must maintain and increase availability of plant genetic variability. Grown together, different varieties of the same crop can help hedge bets against uncertain climate patterns. Some phenotypes will undoubtedly adapt to new pressures more successfully than others. This is also true of various species of soil biota, which provide a variety of ecosystem services. Using diverse planting methods, such as rotations, cover crops, and intercropping (of varieties or species) and increasing soil organic matter, as the primary energy source for aerobic microbes, will help to provide a balanced soil food web, which can increase nutrient cycling and help control soil-borne disease and plant parasites. Warmer winters could lead to reduced die-off of insect pests, making herbivory during the growing season more intense. Intercropping and trap crops can reduce pest pressure and improve soil food web diversity and function. While the exact effects of climate change in any given area are uncertain, the basic principles of agroecology should be used to design management systems that build soil health and increase resistance and resilience to the many potential challenges of our changing climate.