COMIFER Liming Group brings together some twenty active members and as many associate members interested in the issue of liming. They come from very different backgrounds, INRA, technical institutes, education, chambers of agriculture, soil analysis laboratories, manufacturing companies and amendment distributors.

NEW

Publication of the Liming Group’s brochure
“Liming, bases for reasoning”

Download the brochure

The Liming COMIFER group has set the following objectives:

1. To be a forum for discussion and exchange,
2. Collect existing references on liming,
3. To initiate the necessary research,
4. To establish as broadly and as consensually as possible the necessary elements for sustainability and the practice of liming,
5. Prepare their outreach to all industry players

We have four main issues of concern:

1. Understanding the mechanisms of action of amendments in soils
2. Establish references on the acid-base status desirable for crop systems
3. Propose an approach for assessing the need for the amendment and propose it to software developers,
4. Prepare a study on the choice of products.

We can divide the activity of the group into two phases

In the 80s, a resumption of gains that resulted in the production of the book: The Lime State of Soil and Fertility: Liming, edited by COMIFER. At the time, the group was called Calcium, Magnesium and Trace Element Amendments.

Then in the 90s, the group conducted a second study to clarify the following points:
Understanding the action mechanisms of basic calcium amendments.

This was the group’s first task. It resulted in the publication of a glossary and a text “Essential Questions on Liming” (2000). We emphasize the fact that it is the anion accompanying the calcium that can raise the pH and increase the CEC. In relation to the physical aspects of the soil, we have been initiators of a new work on the role of liming, relayed by the Soil Science laboratory of INRA Versailles. These approaches have resulted in various publications at the Academy of Agriculture (February 2000) the acidification symposium of INRA Versailles (April 20001), to the Gemas Comifer Congress in Blois (1995, 2001). This maturation led to proposed changes in the AFNOR standards on classifications of products.

Establish benchmarks

The analysis tests conducted on liming show that performance is not the best indicator of the expected gains because liming plays on the crop conditions, in close interaction with the other factors of production. We propose to conduct further trials with a protocol that is similar to the tests performed on crops. The group is built on the basis of new tests on the acid-base status of meadows. The same thinking must be refined and completed for Arable Farming Systems (see Gemas 95).

Propose an approach for assessing the need for amendments.

The group worked on the calculation of basic needs. The forms are available in the liming brochure.

A – Glossary of liming

To view this document click here

B – Essential questions on liming

This text summarizes the main achievements of the COMIFER Liming Group. It is the result of a collaboration of varied skills, from those of chemists to those of agronomists.

To view this document click here

C – Letter to soil test laboratories

Newsletter to soil analysis laboratories.

To view this document click here

D – List of published references

Reference document groupings COMIFER group publications and external publications.

To view this document click here

E – Press sheets from the INRA Conference on Liming of April 2001