LETS BUILD HEALTHY SOILS (pt1of 2)

For the last 10 years our operation has been working on acquiring the capacity to build soil health.  We have needed knowledge on how to approach the subject, and the equipment to apply that knowledge.  Prior to 2010, we were working to stop the destruction of our soils.  We now have the pieces to improve our soils natural productivity and` make a serious attempt to reach our goal of a sustainable cropping system with reduced synthetic inputs. 

    How do we reach our goal?  My video and document search, along with our limited experience, shows that it is imperative that soil organic matter be increased.  I list several points, not necessarily prioritized, that I have found to be important.   1--manage our cropping system with an eye on ways to reduce herbicide, insecticide, and fungicide applications.   These all have components that negatively influence the development of soil organic matter.    2--we need to do minimal ground disturbance.  This minimizes soil structure damage, keeps roots intact to help hold soil in place and leave root and worm channels exposed at the soil surface.  This also minimizes loss of surface cover.  This also maximizes any mycorrhizal network we may be able to develop for a nutrient/moisture transport, and communication pathway between plants.   3--develop and maintain surface residue.  Residue protects the soil surface, reduces compaction from equipment, feeds the soil macrofauna along with some microfauna, and helps moderate the soil temperature.   4--minimize compaction.  This will help improve soil structure.  Compacted areas have poor soil structure and promote anaerobic soil conditions that increase the types of fungi and bacteria that cause plant diseases and insect predation.  Aerobic soil conditions, on the other hand, increase fungi and bacteria types that promote healthy soil organisms, and reduce pathogenic organisms that negatively impact plants     5--we need to change our fertilizer practices, to minimize the lowering of soil pH,  minimize harm to microbes, and reduce nutrient antagonism.   6--develop techniques to extend the time living roots are in the ground, --preferably all year long.    7--increase microbes and fungi, in our soil.  With our history of a monoculture wheat system, our soils are extremely bacterial.  Soils would perform better if the Bacteria to Fungi ratio was closer to 1/1.   Fungi are important to soil and plant health.  They convert nutrients into more plant available forms.  When available, mycorrhizea fungal networks are an important transporter of moisture and nutrients to plant roots.  Fungal mycellium serve as a line of defense for plant diseases.  Fungi can be promoted by doing all of the (1-6) points discussed above which boils down to, --providing fungi food for as much of the year as possible and stopping the destruction of their hyphae and mycelium.  The chart below shows the relationship between plant types and the bacteria to fungi ratio.  The chart shows there is not much on the "left" of our wheat monoculture other than weeds and rocks.

    For the past 2-3 years, I have participated with a group looking into soil and plant testing, organic forms of fertilizers, and ways to manipulate soil biology to increase soil health.  This has been a valuable experience, and there is more to learn.  

    During this time I have come to the conclusion that we can build healthy soils by proper crop management without amendments.  This requires absolute minimal tillage, keeping the soil surface covered, replacing chemical fallow with green fallow, diversifying our crop cultivars, extending the time we keep a living root in the ground, and paying attention to the synthetic inputs we apply to our crops so as to not destroy the positive gains we make from other practices employed.  The use of animals is not mandatory, but it has been shown that grazing animals speed up the positive soil health processes when properly managed.   

    I feel our operation has the equipment and basic knowledge to begin the process of building soil health.  We now need to develop management skills to make it all happen.  

    As a final note to this post:  Absolute minimal tillage by itself works well too stop erosion and establish a base from which to develop practices that will improve our soils natural productivity.  However, actual improvement of our soils natural productivity comes by managing soil biology through growing diverse plant cultivars.  The intensity, meaning the time with living roots in the ground, and the time taken to mitigate negative components to soil biology, such as synthetic amendments, sets the pace for improving our soils natural productive capacity.

Building Soil Resilience

 

  < Loyal to the Soil >     1:02:07

Above is the link to a presentation (3/3/2020) by a young progressive farmer, Derek Axten, about his journey of building soil health and a sustainable agriculture operation in the challenging environment of Minton, SK.  It's amazing to see what can be done in a relatively short time at a location with low rainfall, short season, on shallow soils with low infiltration.  Even though the Axten operation is a long way from St. John, WA, in an entirely different growing environment, I found several ideas that are food for thought. 

    Axten's operation centers around five principles:  Keeping the soil covered at all times, minimize soil disturbance, diversify plant species, keep a living root in the ground as long as possible, and incorporate livestock when possible.  The presentation tells their story of how they try to carry out those principles.  They also show ways they are adding value to the crops they raise.

    Their operation includes intercropping.  Flax and Chickpeas planted in alternate rows works well for them.  Flax and lentils work for them although others say this doesn't work.  Flax with another forb works.  Flax and mustard or canola works.  Flax and peas work and they don't have to be standup peas.  It's important that the crops mature fairly close together.  They don't normally add fertilizer with their interseeded crops except for a starter with micros.  They haven't found a companion crop that works well with their cereal crops.  They are doing some interseeding with a planter that seeds a companion when the grain is at flag to heading.  They are not finding a yield drag by going out to 15" with the planter, and also, with singulation, they have cut seed rates back giving a substantial cost saving.

Succeed with No-Till

 < Dwayne Beck presentation>    55:34

In recent years I have observed a number of no-till operations that do not look as if the operators understand that there are some basic fundamentals that need to be followed to be successful.  I fear these operations will get into trouble, or revert back to their comfortable position with tillage.  I recommend and encourage farmers to open the above link and learn from it.

This image of Dwayne Beck, a researcher at the Dakota Lakes Research Farm near Pierre, SD, is from a presentation he gave at a meeting sponsored by the SD NO-TILL ASSOCIATION, March 11, 2019.  I have had the privilege of meeting with him and listening to several presentations over the years, starting in May of 1995 at the Dakota Lakes Research Farm.  I would say that Dwayne is the GURU of gurus when it comes to no-till.  Back in the early 1990s, he established the basic fundamentals for successfully no-tilling and the reasoning behind them.  His interest and mine are the same,  --manage water better.  He needed to stop soil erosion in SD, and I needed to stop soil erosion on my operation.  No-tilling was key to that goal.  Unlike so much information available through media, his basic fundamentals on Sanitation, Diversity, Intensity and Competition to successfully no-till works anywhere on the globe.   My first trip (1995) to the research station was prompted by complaints I had using Glyphosate for weed control.  My second trip was prompted by complaints I had about applying his fundamentals to my operation.  The take-home message from that trip was his statement to me, "I earned my Ph.D. developing those fundamentals, now, you will earn your Ph.D. learning how to apply those fundamentals on your farm".  He was so right!  I knew back then that everything about farming is site-specific, but didn't think about it in this context.  Soils, microclimates, topography vary across the land.  I was trying to clone his Pierre SD practices for St. John WA, and that didn't work.  When I adapted my practices to fit the FUNDAMENTALS, no-tilling did work.  We learn our trade and tend to get stuck in our ways instead of adapting to changing conditions.  Climate change and an increasing population with its political fall out are major challenges for farming, and will be more so in the future.  As we move forward to a goal of sustainable production and more nutrient-dense foods with reduced commercial inputs we will have to follow "improved" fundamentals.  Unfortunately, I don't know how to interpret "improved fundamentals" at this time, but I do have a blurred direction to follow.

RUSLE2 -- Explanation of Use

RUSLE2 is used by USDA to evaluate a farm operation for various programs offered by the USDA.  It also can be used by individuals to evaluate practices for the purpose of improving soil health.  Following, is the link to this 1:03:34 presentation explaining the variables that make up  RUSLE2.  [ RUSLE2 explained ]   This is a very good and thorough understandable explanation of what goes into the evaluation.  It's a much better tool than I ever thought.  I knew that it was under constant research to improve its accuracy.

Regenerate the EcoSystem

    Regreening the desert [47:30min]  This link is a video that I found interesting and gives hope to those of us attempting to rebuild what has been lost through 100+ years of destructive, misguided farm practices and programs.   John D. Liu, the photographer and narrator, made a couple of compeling statements in this video.  

    One:  The source of wealth is the functional ecosystem.  The products & services we develop from that are derivatives.  It's impossible for the derivatives to be more valuable than the source, and yet, in our economy as it stands, the products & services have monetary value, but the source, the functional ecosystem have zero. [38:38-39:32]  This is not sustainable.  It promotes the destruction of our ecosystem.

    Two:   Money is a belief system.  There is nothing wrong with money.  The problem is, what is money based on.  If money is based on a functional ecosystem, the future will be beautiful.  If we continue to base money on goods and services, we'll turn everything into a desert. [40:40-41:28]   Unfortunately, this has been the path mankind has taken over human history resulting in the destruction of great societies; however, we now have the communication capability and the knowledge base to improve the outlook for the future.