Ean Parsons is from Baljean farm, an upland marginal farm on the Isle of Man. Baljean is mostly made up of permanent pasture, where suckler cows and ewes are grazed.
Ean signed up to Soilmentor in order to document evidence for a Soil Health Incentive scheme, and was initially sceptical about using the app, but after starting his soil monitoring, he found the experience valuable and rewarding. We spoke to Ean about his journey with soil monitoring and using Soilmentor so far.
The Power of Observation
Ean initially felt reluctant to dig holes and collect his samples, “I probably set out with the wrong mindset… I kept kicking the can down the road… I can manage IT but I’m not totally fluent”. This initial hurdle stalled Ean from starting his soil monitoring, but once he had taken the first leap he was surprised by the power of making simple soil observations.
There is one particular field which Ean uses for feeding lambs on green crops that triggered a change in his mindset. When he went to test the soil in this field, he found a solid, compacted layer of soil underneath three inches of topsoil, most likely from grazing the lambs in wet weather the previous year. For spring 2025, his plan had been to till the field and broadcast some seed.
“This was the moment when my mindset on Soilmentor began to change a bit. I thought to myself, ‘actually, I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t been using Soilmentor.’”
The findings from his soil sampling session led Ean to change his management plan for the field, instead opting to sub-soil the area to break up the hardened, compacted layer underneath, “we’re now planning to disk the top two or three inches and put a herbal ley in there to help with compaction further”.
Through the insights gained on his soil prior to the growing season, Ean feels that he has saved money through avoiding a weak or failed crop this spring, “now I think we’ll get a much better reseed than we could’ve achieved before”.
“You know, it’s a 15 acre block, with seed at around £80/acre and without fertiliser or drilling costs, that could’ve been quite a lot of money down the drain if I hadn’t gone and dug holes there.”
A change in mindset
Having experienced the power of observation for himself, Ean has begun to expand his own observation practice on the farm, with a special mention of the bird sound monitoring app Merlin:
“I’ve even found myself downloading a bird app on my phone and discovering different types of birds I didn’t know were here… I’ve just been putting it on listening mode while digging my holes and it would be picking up everything that was making a noise round about you. I don’t usually think of myself as a sort of wildlife person, but even recording different kinds of birds has been quite interesting. Biodiversity recording will be fun to do in the summer [when there are more animals & birds around].”
On reflection, Ean realises that “the thought of doing it [soil monitoring] turned out to be an awful lot worse than actually doing it…I found it so much easier to use once we got into doing it. The instructions on the app are really good, it’s really self-explanatory”. Like many farmers who start soil monitoring on their farms, Ean didn’t set out to use Soilmentor because he wanted to ‘geek out’ on soil, but in his words, ‘the common factor is that we all need soil to work for us, it’s probably the most important part of all farming. It converted me, so I suppose that’s good!”.
New discoveries: worms, carbon stocks, % organic matter and rooting depths
With soil testing, there are endless discoveries to be made about your soils despite your familiarity with your land, “When you’re out there working [in the fields], you are a bit oblivious to what is going on around you” (Ean). Ean’s results on Soilmentor have surprised him so far, particularly with the amount of earthworms he has found on his land:
“I’ve been blown away by the amount of earthworms we’ve got on the farm! I was expecting very few worms because the land is rocky. A lot of my fields don’t have the depth of a spade in soil, so I was so shocked at the number of samples that came back with 20-30 worms in them; it blows my mind!”
Due to the rocky nature of his land, Ean was also taken by surprise at some of the rooting depths he has recorded so far, “even on the more bare pastures, we still found quite a good root structure there, which will benefit [the land] come spring and going forwards”.
Initially Ean was nervous to do his carbon content tests on the farm, but was pleasantly surprised when the results came back with both carbon content and % organic matter high in most of his fields. This felt like a confirmation that his hard work on the farm is paying off:
“It’s easy to be hard on yourself but something must be getting done right, it’s probably from generations of that more traditional farming that we’ve never stopped doing on the Isle of Man.”
The convenience of having all your farm data in one place
The fact that Ean now has all of his farm data stored in one place has been the biggest benefit to his farming business:
“Previously, I had dug holes and looked at the soil but that information was never really stored anywhere or recorded. I would have information stored on files in the computer or in filing cabinets; that’s the beauty of it, that anyone who is working with us at Baljean can have access to that data, out in the field or wherever. That’s the biggest benefit I see for my farming business going forward.”
Ean now walks around the farm and reaches for Soilmentor when he needs to remember something he logged previously; he can access all his past results and observations and utilise it on-the-go.
Thank you to Ean Parsons for sharing your Soilmentor journey with us! If you want to get in contact with us with anything Soilmentor related, contact us on info@vidacycle.com. If you’d like to learn more about regenerating soil health, head to our Regen Soils Hub.
