Nematodes and Soil Health

Soil health refers to a balanced condition of soil physical, chemical, and biological processes conducive to high productivity and environmental quality. Soil health concepts are commonly used to evaluate changes, compare soils, or assess the effectiveness of land-use management. This research deals with soil health concepts, soil health indicators and their assessment, current understanding of management effects on soil health, and guidelines for improving soil health and sustainable crop production. Soil health assessment implies the evaluation of the fitness of soil to perform desired functions and its capacity to resist and recover from degradation. Land managers, growers, and researchers assign a relative value to soil health using various qualitative and quantitative indicators.

Microorganisms are fundamental pieces of living soil and are of utmost significance for soil wellbeing. Free-living nematodes can be utilized as viable soil well-being bio-indicators since they are normally found, simple to test, and very much ordered into useful (taking care of) gatherings, and nematode taxa are all around characterized. The piece of nematode networks (plant-parasitic and free-living) might be utilized as bio-indicators of soil health or condition since synthesis relates well with nitrogen cycling and decay, two basic natural cycles in soil. Organic pointers incorporate microorganisms, protozoa, and metazoa. Nematodes, the most plentiful kind of metazoan live in different sorts of soils. Nematodes differ regarding their aversion to contaminations and ecological unsettling influences, and the nematode networks are generally acknowledged as basic marks of soil quality and soil health. Soil nematodes (free-living and plant-parasitic) are related to the degree of nitrogen cycling and deterioration. Free-living nematodes mirror the biodiversity of soil biological systems and soil health.

Article by Elijah Kitheka