Mixing DS and CT

     In recent years there has been a lot of money available to farm operators encouraging the use of direct seeding in the Palouse.  I am seeing more direct seeding, DS drills are being bought, but many of those operations are still including cultivation as a farming practice.  Why? --are they continuing to compare DS with CT? --are they expecting to use DS as another practice in the toolbox?

     I'm not a proponent for either, --if either are the reason.   The more I learn about building healthy soils, the more apparent that DS is only the starting point, and ULD has to be employed to reach that level.  DS may stop the bleeding from water and wind events depending on the amount of surface cover, and disturbance done by the seeding operation, but building soil health requires more.  We all know how destructive CT can be from water and wind events, but, I'm finding out that there is a real lack of understanding among farmers about the destruction that tillage does to the soil without any water and wind events.  Every tillage operation degrades soil structure by breaking soil aggregates into ever finer particles.   Tillage accelerates OM loss, reducing moisture holding capability of the soil.   Every tillage operation slices and dices the environment that supports the biological life that makes soil out of dirt.  The effect can be somewhat compared to a bulldozer being run through your home.   Every chemical application, every fertilizer application, every tillage operation, fire or other natural event that denudes or moves soil degrades the biological life of that soil.  So, everything we normally do to raise our crops has a negative impact.  The more we add, or do, the worse the damage.   Our various technologies allow increasing  yields even though our soils continually degrade through current cropping practices, --that includes most DS operations.  As our soils degrade to dirt, it's ability to partially support our yields is also reduced.  It doesn't take soil to raise crops.  Proof is the thriving business of hydroponics where all plant nutrition is supplied by applied chemistry.  As our soils degrade we will find ourselves applying more plant nutrients with their associated cost.  This needs to change!  The challenge for us is to learn how to reduce these negative impacts, and promote an environment that builds soil structure and soil biological communities, and still maintain reasonable yields during the transition.  At this point in time, that means reducing soil disturbance, increase crop diversity, use covers for our specific soil needs, and probably apply compost or teas to jump start the soil biology.  Don't bother adding compost or teas that don't have the specific elements needed by your soil.  They will be a waste of money.  Soil biological tests from Earthfort in Oregon will give you the information you need about the condition of your soils, though finding compost that will meet your specific soil needs may not exist at this point in time.  I'm looking into that now to see if any composting facility can analysis the compost for bacteria, fungi and protozoa, nematodes, and if they can make compost to a specific proportion of these elements.

      Dr. Elaine Ingham, a soil microbiologist, will be a featured speaker at the 2017 Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Conference in January.  She has an interesting message that will blow your mind about soil health and what healthy soils are capable of producing on their own without commercial inputs.  She is the lead scientist at the Rodale Institute and has a consulting business "The Soil Food Web".  She is featured on several Utube videos.   Dr. Ingham's website