Soil health educator, rethinking soils through a lens of biology.
Australia-UK-Canada
Joined April 2017
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Joel Williams retweeted
What a day!!
A huge thank you to everyone who came along to Fields Good, and to every speaker, demonstrator, exhibitor, volunteer and sponsor who gave their time, brought their energy and shared so much.
And a special thank you to The Sheddings for letting us take over their beautiful farm for the day!
So many good conversations, ideas shared and connections made. We hope you all went home with something new to think about, try or take back to your own farm.
Thank you for being part of Fields Good 2026.
It really is all of you that makes this festival come to life
#FieldsGood #FarmingFestival #farminglife
Joel Williams retweeted
As well as our three speaker tents we will have mini-talks and Q&As
The Lodge:
💬Josiah Meldrum - Hodmedods
💬CAFRE Horticulture Scheme - David Dowds
💬Why liming is your biggest bang for your buck with Kilwaughter Lime
💬James Beecher - Manager of the Real Farming Twinning Programme, which pairs agroecological farms with social justice organisations such as food banks
Horticulture Tent
🌿Mid Ulster Beekeepers
Demonstrations
🌿Wood turning - Green woodworking
🌿Stone masonry demo with Nathan Morrow
🌿Willow weaving
PLUS
⭐Field Walk with Joel Williams (meet by Riverside Tent)
⭐Agroforestry demonstration with Prof Jim McAdam and Fred Farrelly
⭐Soil Health Tent with KPM Soils microscopy and Soil Bio Lab compost extract and Ryan Harkin showing Korean Natural Farming techniques.
All the details are on our website, and you will find QR codes to the full programme at the gate.
#FieldsGood2026 #Agriculture #FarmingFestival #SoilHealth #FarmingLife
Looking forward to speaking in Northern Ireland on Saturday. Still tix available, plenty of other great speakers, check it out ⬇️
Joel Williams from @integratedsoils will be leading this year's field walk. Don't miss this hands-on session from Joel, an expert plant and soil health educator.
Just £50 a ticket and you get access to practical and valuable talks and panel discussions all day, plus trade displays, demos, food and evening entertainment and drinks.
fieldsgood.co.uk
#FieldsGood #Agriculture #Farming
Joel Williams retweeted
Organic nitrogen has a built-in advantage most people don’t talk about.
When a plant takes up nitrogen as an amino acid (organic N) instead of nitrate/ammonium (inorganic N), it can be cheaper for the plant to turn that N into proteins because the amino acid brings carbon with it.
A peer-reviewed paper in Plant, Cell & Environment calls this the “carbon bonus” of organic N.
A few takeaways worth thinking about in the field:
•Organic N can improve nitrogen productivity (more growth per unit of plant N), reported up to ~20% higher in their synthesis.
•Plants often shift allocation when fed organic N: higher root:shoot ratios (they reported up to 3x higher), which can matter for resilience and nutrient capture.
•The upside is biggest when the plant is growing fast and isn’t light-limited (high N, high light conditions).
My takeaway: it’s not just “how much N is out there.” The form of N and the plant’s cost to use it matters. Carbon stretches your nitrogen dollar. Build Weoc, better N efficiency.
If you’re trying to stretch efficiency on every input dollar this season, this is one of the first principles to keep in mind.
What are you seeing in your fields: does early plant health look more limited by total N, or by how efficiently the plant can turn nutrition into growth?
Joel Williams retweeted
We have a brilliant line up of speakers from across the world for Fields Good this year.
Our headline speaker this year is Joel Williams @integratedsoils - a passionate, practical educator who breaks complex science down into ideas every farmer can actually use.
Joel will share how nutrients function in our soil and how we can maximise nutrient recovery and cycling with soil biology, in order to maximise yield and profits.
To find out more about Joel and all our other speakers and panel guests, just head to our website.
#FieldsGood #NorthernIreland #AgricultureNI #FarmingFestival #SoilHealth #Agriculture
Joel Williams retweeted
Europe is losing more than €50 billion annually because of its degraded soils
euronews.com/my-europe/2026/…
Joel Williams retweeted
Dig into the science of soil health! Join Joel Williams on his next stop in the Soil Health Summer Tour, or find an event to attend near you 🪱 🌱 integratedsoils.com/events/ #soilhealth #efp #abefp #sustainableagriculture #sustainablefarming #albertaag #agriculture
Joel Williams retweeted
Despite heat 50+ growers joined us for the annual #DorsetiFarm summer event
🌾wheat & barley varieties treated & untreated
🌱 oilseed rape varieties & NUE
🧪 fungicide standards versus new/development chemistry
📊NUE
@IntegratedSoils optimising foliar nutrition
@AgriiUK
Joel Williams retweeted
And just like that we go from solubilizing urea yesterday to applying it on our fields today. 5 gal of solution with 5 water for a 10gal ride. Herbicide plus full nutrition pkg. applied at the 3 leaf stage for max yield potential. Oh yeah, no up front N...none.
Joel Williams retweeted
Lovely foliar fertilizer set up by @jhealyq
@IntegratedSoils
Foliar fertilizer working a treat. So far only 35 units put out on grazing ground. Thanks to @ArableSam for the advice! Cows flying at 2.65 kgms on 8.5 kg meal. Silage on the ground since yesterday. Hopefully staying dry for the next 24 hours. Picking up in the morning.
"Years of breeding crops in the presence of easily accessible fertilisers has created high yielding crops for modern farms, but they can be ‘lazy’ underground"
news.uq.edu.au/2026-04-futur…
Joel Williams retweeted
In Journal of Sustainable Agriculture and Environment-Review of Amino Acid Foliar Application as a Stress Mitigation Strategy: Unraveling the Protective Mechanisms Against Abiotic Stress - Ma - 2026 -
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/…
Joel Williams retweeted
Real interesting review paper on the role a wide array of root exudates play in shaping soil microbial communities and mitigating plant stress. Root exudates include a lot more than "cookies and cakes."
Full article here: mdpi.com/2311-7524/12/1/90
cc. @Johnkempf @IntegratedSoils @MattPowersSoil @samdknowlton @CSUChicoRegenAg @UnderstandingAg @AcresUSA
Joel Williams retweeted
Interesting new open source paper on MAOM-N, Mineral-associated organic nitrogen pool size, composition, and accessibility mediated by agricultural management and soil geochemical characteristics.
Link to full paper here: tinyurl.com/mnv5ntb9
Below are some excerpts:
"...Organic matter can provide a relatively slow-cycling source of bioavailable N that may be better matched to plant demand than mineral N fertilizers (Franklin et al., 2017, Yang et al., 2020)..."
"...However, in many soils, the majority of SOM-N is held within mineral-associated organic matter (MAOM).."
"....Agricultural management practices could also exert a significant influence on MAOM-N stocks (Villarino et al., 2023). On average, soils maintained under long-term cropping systems contain 37 % less MAOM-N compared to grasslands (Lugato et al., 2021). Tillage practices are likely partly responsible for this observed decline: soils maintained under conventional tillage may contain 9–20 % less MAOM-N compared to soils maintained under reduced tillage practices (Jilling et al., 2020, St. Luce et al., 2022). Mineral N fertilizers applied to agricultural soils can accelerate MAOM-N loss by stimulating microbial decomposition or through pH changes that disrupt mineral-organic associations (Ren et al., 2024). Agricultural management may also reduce the quantity of new organic N inputs available to form MAOM-N. A decrease in the amount and diversity of root exudates and other rhizodeposits under annual monocropping systems has been linked to a decline in SOM stocks and mean residence time compared to soils maintained under perennial grasslands and mixed croplands (Cotrufo et al., 2022, Domeignoz-Horta et al., 2024, Eisenhauer et al., 2017, Ma et al., 2022, Poeplau et al., 2021, Seitz et al., 2023)...."
cc. @Johnkempf @IntegratedSoils @samdknowlton @UnderstandingAg @CSUChicoRegenAg @MattPowersSoil @SusFoodTrust @ffinlocostain
"...grasslands can function as net carbon sinks, even after accounting for methane emissions from livestock"
science.org/doi/10.1126/scie…
“People usually think of microplastics as a problem for oceans [...] our work shows that terrestrial plants are also on the front line and may become an important gateway for plastics into land food webs.”
eurekalert.org/news-releases…
Joel Williams retweeted
Excited for this fantastic line up of speakers for NACC NRM to benefit farmers north of Perth in early 2026 @KevinElmy @IntegratedSoils @grant_sims
Have been busy curating these events in early 2026 to support farmers in the Northern Ag Region with my work at NACC NRM. Feel free to please email me or PM me for expression of interest and further details! nacc.com.au/resilient-farmin…
A selection of upcoming webinars for the new year, I'll be taking part in the biochar discussion... see you there.
linkedin.com/posts/food4sust…
Joel Williams retweeted
🪱🐜 Happy #WorldSoilDay!! 🕷️🪲
Although we celebrate soil everyday, today is a great reminder to appreciate the breadth of diversity beneath our feet.
Check out the GSBI atlas to explore the organisms that call soil home!
globalsoilbiodiversity.org/a…
