SOIL HEALTH

DID YOU KNOW !  ------
        The modern soil health (SH) movement has its roots in the oil embargo of 1973 that spurred a renewed interest in investigating how the soil microbial population could be used to replenish nitrogen (N) available from soil, due to huge increases in the price of N fertilizers. Soon after, there was a push to implement minimum and no-till conservation practices on the land to reduce anthropogenic erosion. In the 1980s, a consortium of public and private entities provided information to land managers on the best ways to implement these new practices. Concurrently, leading experts in soil quality were developing definitions and recommended data to characterize soil quality as affected by human management (Doran et al. 1994, Doran and Jones 1996).

While soil microbial methodologies were relatively primitive at the time, soil biology was always an integral part of the scientific effort to improve the understanding and measurement of soil characteristics. Eventually, as the capacity to study soil biology improved, discussion of soil quality was replaced by a discussion of soil health as a means of communicating the importance of understanding and managing the soil as a living, breathing ecosystem. NRCS has defined soil health as “the capacity of the soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that supports plants, animals, and humans.”
        The above paragraph is a cut/paste piece from the INTRODUCTION to the document:   Soil Health Technical Note No. SH-XX.  --This is a draft version in the Federal Register relating to Soil Health Standard Indicators and Laboratory Procedures, by USDA.  Public comment period is about to close and the draft version will be edited and a final version will likely be posted sometime in 2019.
       When I came across this document it helped reduce my skepticism about Elaine Ingham's statement that the first comprehensive book on soil microbiology was published in 1985.  It seemed unreal to me that there was so little known about our soil that recent.  I was well into my farming career by that time and didn't know I was so ignorant.  Now it seems that the more I learn, the less I know.
        I remember the oil embargo of 73.  It was one of those experiences that produced uncertainty, and hence, was a bit scary.  I remember visiting relatives in Seattle and hunting for a gas station that advertised "Have Gas", and waiting in line a block long, hoping to get a tank full.  Sometimes you were limited to 5 gallons per purchase.  Farm fuel suppliers were put on allotments.  Harvest started early that year and our local fuel supplier was running low on his allotment for August.  He kept all the machines running that last couple of days in August by daily going from field to field and delivering directly into the combine only enough for most of that days run.  September 1st came with a new allotment of fuel and everything was fine after that.  We mostly live with our head in a cloud and don't realize how vulnerable we are to societies infrastructure.  Loss of fuel or the electrical grid are two examples of many issues that would turn civil to uncivil quickly.  

2018 Cover Crop Update

SUMMARY OF 2018 COVER CROP EXPERIENCE: (the details are below this summary)  -- The property history is:  farmed conventionally from ~1900 through 1986.  CRP  from 1986 through 2013.  2014 field seeded to spring barley.  2015 seeded to 5 & 9 cultivar cover crop.  2016 seeded to winter wheat.  2017 seeded to spring canola.  2018 seeded to 5 cultivar cover crop.
     The cover crop (~75ac) was the first seeded for the year, with (~ 10ac) seeded last, after the cash crops.  All the cover crop cultivars had a high emergence rate with a good to excellent stand on poor as well as good soil.  The amount of biomass grown represented the type of ground under it.  10#N placed with the seed would have paid big dividends in the poor soil areas.  We did an early takeout this year instead of letting it go to maturity.  The hope was that we could maximize the N retention and minimize water loss.  We took soil tests from our normal fallow area as well as on the cover crop area.  As usual they are a source of frustration.  Inconsistent, What? that's not right! how can that be?!  The only consistent element is the use of 3" moisture to grow the CC.  I'm disappointed in this because our early takeout should have resulted in less moisture use by the CC.  Well, it's just one piece of data in a short list of try's.  I can see that I should be taking these tests myself.  Even though I have a competent person pulling these tests, I can't be sure they are taken consistently in the same place time after time, and without that knowledge it's difficult for me to analyze the results.  (Most of this summary was posted to the Cover Crop Page.)
                                            --------------------------------------
    4/15/18?? --Seeded ~75ac field with 5 cultivar cover crop.  Two cultivars of large seed (forage pea, forage oats), and 3 cultivars of small seed (white dutch clover, daikon radish, pardenni lentil).
    5/12/18?? --Seeded ~ 5ac with remaining 5 cultivar cover crop all mixed together.  Earlier seeding was separated by size with large seed on 20" row's and small seeds between the large seed rows.  We had great emergence of the early seeded cultivars, including the Dutch White Clover.
    7/7/18 --We started the takeout process for the 5 cultivar (forage oat, forage pea, daikon radish, small lentil, white dutch clover) cover crop.  The intent this year was to takeout at the height of N production (early pod setting).  We were a little late (~1-1.5wks).  Currently the peas and lentils and radish have finished bloom and well into pod/seed development.  The clover has some blooms.  The forage oats has headed and have some seed in the milk.  East of the ditch, the planting is ~3wks later and takeout is probably 1-1.5wks too early.  We should have added some N (~10#).  I think it would have resulted in significant more biomass.  As it is, we have some areas with good height and color, and others are shorter, and yellowish in color.  Many of the areas without complete canopy have Russian Thistle and Skeleton Weed competing with the covers.
        The late seeded cover mix, which was all mixed together and seeded out at the same depth as the canola at Thornton showed difference in emergence between cultivars.  The radish was the only indicator that the small seed mix was fairly well distributed throughout the large seed mix.  The White Dutch Clover did not emerge well.  The other four cultivars emerged well.  Radish, because of it's early bolt and flowering, is a good indicator of field distribution of the seed mix.  What we have learned at this point from three years experience is that radish will likely emerge if held to around 1.5" depth.
        We have an interest in four types of takeout processes.  We hope to find one that will leave our White Dutch Clover and take out the remainder.
        Because of logistics issues we were not able to try a crimper.  We would like to have tried that method although we are skeptical that it would work with our cultivars or terrain.
        We sprayed ~20ac (one swath west of the ditch, and all the cover on the east side of the ditch) with a mix of 2-4D and Rt3 left over from the bordering chem fall field.
        We used the 26' Shulte mower on ~20ac, --mostly on the upper west side with wide headlands on the north and south borders.  At a distance the mowed area looks pretty good; however, close inspection shows cultivars missed.  We'll see if the forage oats become a contaminate in next years fall wheat.
        On the 9th we sprayed one quart per acre of paraquat and 2qt/100g of Outrigger with 20gpa total solution on the remaining field and over some of the mowed ground.

     8/14/18-- The cover crop takeout methods were evaluated.  The Roundup and Gromoxone applications look pretty good; however, the mowed area has recovered with the skeleton weed showing a lot of bloom.  We applied Gromoxone to the mowed ground to stop the Skeleton weed bloom.
     9/20/18--Some recovery of Rush Skeleton Weed, and it was flowering and some matured.  It appears that the Gromoxone is the best takeout method.  It burned everything down fast and the Rush Skeleton Weed was very slow to recover.  The Glyphosate was too slow in burn down allowing the target plants to continue competing for 4-6 days longer than the Gromoxone.
     We did not make a Glyphosate application prior to seeding our winter wheat.   There were few Russian thistles present and no grass weeds observed.  There was a significant amount of Rush Skeleton weed present.  I'm not sure whether we are making any headway in controlling that pest(Rush Skeleton weed).  It's not suppose to compete well with a growing crop; however, this piece of ground with shallow soil and heavy population, may be an exception.
      11/21/18  --Evaluated winter wheat seeded into the cover crop ground.  The wheat was seeded during the 3rd wk of September into dry conditions.  We received sufficient moisture the 4th wk of October to germinate the winter wheat, but by then the weather was quite cool with freezing nights and near freezing days.  The winter wheat has mostly emerged (~95%) but very small, ranging from spike to a few two leaves.                                                                    

Glyphosate

        Roundup is back in the news.  The jury verdict this past spring was surprising.  To me this looked like an easy win for Monsanto with the plaintiff being a groundskeeper with only two years history using Roundup, while there is a American Health Study (AHS) on farmers and farm families  that summarizes: --In this large, prospective cohort study (#1 link), no association was apparent between glyphosate and any solid tumors or lymphoid malignancies overall, including NHL(Non-Hodgkin lymphoma) and its subtypes. There was some evidence of increased risk of AML(Acute myeloid leukemia) among the highest exposed group that requires confirmation.  This study was revisited and updated in 2018 with no change in the summary.  Links #2 & 3, describes why it is so difficult to predict an outcome with a jury trial.  The facts are so ambiguous and they can be blurred by how a question is framed/phrased/developed.   I am slowly coming to the conclusion that there is no conclusive science surrounding this subject, and that public perception, emotion, and political correctness will rule the day on the use of Glyphosate, --or any other subject that catches the publics attention.
      I'm including a link (#4) to an AHS site showing increased risk for farmers and farm families to certain diseases/conditions.  This is not a comprehensive list, but recent determinations.  It's a bit sobering.  I think I am a typical farmer in that safety frequently takes second place to expediency when it comes to working with agriculture chemistry.  An Antidote: (recently we took old, and in some cases unidentifiable (lost label) agricultural chemistry to a state sponsored collection area. Every year the Dept of Ag sponsors these collections as encouragement for  farmers to not dump this chemistry on the ground when it's determined to be unusable for their crops.  The collection "professionals" were all dressed in hazmat suits, and the farmers were delivering their jugs and other containers wearing normal working clothing of leather boots, cotton pants, shirts, bill caps and no gloves.)  After viewing PBS's documentary on "9 Months That Made Me", I have become more aware of how life style effects our health and life expectancy and general quality of life.   It's a little late for me; however, the younger generation should pay more attention to personal protection when using Ag Chemistry.  The AHS studies show that we not only have elevated levels of these chemistry's in our bodies, but we expose our families to the effects of these chemistry's when we wear contaminated clothing around them.
1)  Farmer Health study :  (This is an abstract of the AHS mentioned above on Glyphosate.)
2)  Popular Science on Jury's & Science :  (A short article on dilemma associated with Juries reconciling legal and Science evidence.)
3  SNOPES: Juries & Science :  (A long article explaining the difficulty in reconciling legal and science evidence.)
4  News & Findings (on Farmers Health)  (A list of findings on increased risks for farmers.)

SOIL TESTING - Simple/Useful/DIY tests

    Through a Twitter post, I discovered the following website that gave 20 various tests for evaluating soil health.  Most are useful for both pasture and cropland, with visual observation tips and evaluation sheets/parameters to track progress to improved soil health.  Many only require taking a spade depth and width plug of soil (I use a trenching shovel for it's long narrow blade), and a number of these tests/observations can be made with the same sample. [ variety of useful DIY tests soil health ]

LAND STEWARDSHIP -- IMPROVE WITH KNOWLEDGE

For Soil Sustainability - every agricultural operation needs

continual upgrading of it's conservation ethic, and it's increasingly easier to do with the internet providing access to the research being done.
      As I look back, my life has spanned nearly the entire period of "modern" agriculture, --since tractors replaced horses.  In the early 1930's, my grandfather traded twelve Percheron horses for a 20hp, gas fueled, steel track, Allis Chalmers Model M tractor (I have one stored in the barn).  1942, the farming community started learning to farm out of a "jug" (2-4D was first marketed).   Holistic farming practices, what there was, were abandoned.  I have a newspaper article where my grandfather was interviewed, stating that when he first started farming he could raise forty bushels to the acre of winter wheat every year, but now (early 1940's), he had to incorporate a fallow year to get 40 bushels on his winter wheat.  In retrospect, what can be read into his statement was this:  In 30-40 years,  farming practices had destroyed the native soils natural ability to annually grow 40bu/ac of winter wheat.  Tillage along with associated erosion was destroying the organic matter, reducing the ability of the soil to hold water, and provide nutrients for the crop.  This destructive process is continuing today on most farming operations.  Today, it's reported, depending on the location, that 40% - 60% of the natural productivity of our soils have been lost.  

      From the time the sod was plowed under at the turn of the 20th century, through the mid 1960's there was tremendous erosion.  Regularly there was deep snow on frozen ground that resulted in spring runoffs that cut many and deep ditches in fields of winter wheat, along with intense summer storms compounding the problem.  From the 60's to the mid 80's snow decreased, the ground didn't freeze as deep, summer storms became less, and in 1984 we were declared a drought region.  Around  2006 it looked like we may be seeing a swing back to more snow, and summer storm activity but now I question that observation.  Climate is dynamic, and change was obviously taking place, then, as now.

      Today, many farm operations are still following the farming practices of our grandfathers and fathers.  The difference I see is today tractors have more horsepower, and tillage equipment is bigger and heavier.  A 500-600 horsepower tractor can pull equipment faster and deeper.  In the Palouse it has long been common practice to comb the field to smooth the roughness left by primary tillage operations.  These operations have loosened and floated most , or all, the organic matter off narrow ridges and redeposited it on the lower slopes.
       I credit the publics demand for clean water and the interest in organic food for the research being done that can only be termed more "holistic".  The federal and state governments are throwing a lot of money at the problem of water pollution.  In the last two decades research has been steadily ramping up on all disciplines associated with soil health which included the reintroduction of cover crops.
       In my college days if someone would have said "plants communicate with one another" they would have been dismissed as looney.  Today we know this to be a credible statement, along with knowledge that organisms in the soil biota mine nutrients from solid rock, plants can redistribute nutrients through the soil profile, influence soil pH, mycorrhiza fungi transport water and nutrients between supportive plant species, and every plant type manufactures a different root exudate.
      There is tremendous amount of new information on issues relating to soil health, and it is coming at an every increasing pace.  We as Stewards of the land need to learn and apply this knowledge.