This intended 2023 post was lost in the mix and never completed; however; I find it's musing still germane to the discussion, so I am posting it now, mid 2026.
2023: --> As this harvest nears completion I look over the landscape and see gold and brown. There is only a small fraction left of the green that dominated the landscape a couple of months ago. As I reminisce over the year, I realize that gold and brown dominates the landscape most of the time. The time from when we recognize a green tint to an emerging crop, through the lush green stage, then receding to gold/brown is a relatively small portion of any given year.
Anyone who has done a study on soil health has come across a number of articles explaining the relationship between farming practices and climate. A "very" short summation is: -->There is no carbon neutral farming practice. Farm land is either giving up Carbon or taking in carbon, and our farming practices directly affect this process . For the earth to take in carbon from the atmosphere, plants have to be actively growing. In all other situations, earth gives up carbon to the atmosphere. Farming practices effect the rate that the earth gives up it's carbon, and how long the ground gives up carbon. Even in the presents of plants, we are talking about a net balance of carbon being put into the ground or being released into the atmosphere. Carbon, at the same time it is being put into the ground, is also being released from the ground through respiration from biology in the soil. Plants take in CO2, and respire O2, while the supporting soil biology takes in oxygen and respires carbon dioxide. The best scenario possible, is for the ground to be untilled, and solidly covered with growing plants, where the bottom side of the leaf is intercepting the CO2 leaving the ground surface while the top of the leaf is pulling CO2 from the atmosphere through the photosynthesis process. Soils contain several gases, that include a large amount of CO2 and O2. When soils are not disturbed, these gas elements are at a level of equilibrium that are exchanged at low rates between soil and atmosphere. SOoooo! how do our farming practices effect CARBON.
Farmers are traditionalists, and creatures of habit,--with tillage being one of those habits. A primary effect, when we till, is the burst of CO2 that has been stored in the soil and suddenly released into the atmosphere, whether it is from a moldboard plow, a disc drill, or tine harrow. It's just a matter of scale. The initial burst is followed by a continuous release of CO2, diminishing over time until the soil environment reaches a new stable soil condition. The deeper, more aggressive the tillage the more CO2 that is released. During the early 70's there were studies on CO2 release from various tillage tools done by Washington State University (WSU) that showed these effects. A secondary effect of a tillage operation, is the introduction of air (oxygen) to the soil profile. This added air (O2) combines with available moisture(H2O) and fuel (OM) to accelerate the manufacture of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is released into the atmosphere. It's like stoking a slow burning fire to get it to flare up and burn hotter. A third effect of tillage is drying of the soil. Tillage loosens soil which exposes more soil particle surfaces with its attached moisture. Most of this exposed moisture evaporates directly into the atmosphere along with the carbon lost in the acceleration of the biological process.
