Robust soil health can lead to more resilient, productive, and profitable farms. In this session you’ll learn the five principles of soil health, and how you can adapt these principles to build healthy, thriving soils. We’ll look at the science of soil ecosystems as well as real world examples of producers who have regenerated the health of their soils using a wide range of practices. Participants will leave with the knowledge necessary to improve their farm’s soil health and will take with them a selection of relevant ATTRA publications for further study. Nina Prater, National Center for Appropriate Technology (AR)
2. • Soil that functions as a vibrant living ecosystem,
sustaining plants, animals, and humans.
What is a Healthy Soil?
2
Photo credit: Manitoba Pulse & Soybean Growers
3. There Is No One Right Way
3
• Learn the principles and figure out practices that
match your situation
5. • In stable ecosystems:
– Soils covered all the time
– Soils are never turned on a field
scale
– Huge biodiversity
– Animals & plants together
– Water cycle intact
– Nutrients cycle within system,
very little leaves system
– Nutrients that enter system are
biological in origin
Nature as Model
5
6. • Minimize Disturbance
• Maximize Biodiversity
• Keep it Covered
• Living Roots
• Include Animals
(or their manure)
Five Principles of Soil Health
6
9. Effects of Disturbance:
• Tillage exposes bare soil
– Carbon (soil organic matter) is lost
• Tillage degrades soil structure
• Tillage destroys mycorrhizal fungi
• N fertilizers can result in Carbon loss
• N fertilizers can result in soil acidification
• N fertilizers cause legumes to stop producing N
Minimize Disturbance
9
10. In Practice:
• Utilize no-till or minimum-till practices
– No-till drill, harrow, spader, roller crimper, etc.
– Switch to perennial production crops
• Design farm to encourage biological control
– Reduce pesticides
• Add/maintain fertility biologically
– Use nitrogen fixers, green manures, and compost
Minimize Disturbance
10
11. • Case Study: Three Sisters Farm, South Carolina
SSARE Farmer/Rancher Research: Modified Method for Roller-Crimper No Till
System in the Southeast Coastal Plain (Project No. FS16-288), Mary Connor
Switching to no-till on raised beds, using a combination of cover-cropping,
tarping, and the roller-crimper.
Minimize Disturbance
11
Photos from project final report
12. • Case Study: Cow-calf operation, Cedarville AR
• Prior to 2010: herd continuously grazed
• Dewormed with ivermectin every 6 months (no
testing)
• In 2010, switched to rotational grazing, began
doing fecal egg count
• Haven’t wormed since
• Dung beetles returned
• No longer ‘drag’ pastures
• Save $$!
12
Minimize Chemical Disturbance
13. • Diverse plant species lead to diverse microbial
population
• Diversity = resiliency
– Resilient soil = resilient farm
Maximize Biodiversity
13
14. In Practice:
• Diverse fruit/vegetable types
• Crop rotation
• Diverse cover crops
• Establish/manage for diverse pasture plants
• Animals add microbial diversity
• Inoculate seeds/soil with microorganisms
• Wildlife
Maximize Biodiversity
14
15. Biodiversity
15
• Case Study: Mountain View Orchard, McCaysville GA
Measuring the Benefits of Wildflower Plots to Boost Fruit Yield and Pollinator
Abundance in Georgia Apple Orchards
(Project Number FS16-290), Joe Dickey
Planted 3 100’ x 100’ diverse wildflower plots in 2016.
• 2016 Apple Harvest: 3150 bushels
– 2014-2015 average: 2200-2300 bushels
• Native bee populations increased,
especially bumblebees
Photo credit: Mountain View Orchards
16. • Exposed Soil = Eroded Soil
• Exposed Soil = Hot Soil (and low microbial activity)
• Exposed Soil = Poor water infiltration
Keep it Covered
16
18. • Case Study: From Literature Review in:
“Mulch influence on soil temperature and corn growth” William Chapel Burrows
Iowa State University, 1959
Keep it Covered
18
19. • Continuous Living Cover = Continuous Enrichment
– Root exudates: feed the soil food web
Living Roots
19
20. In Practice:
• Diverse Cover Cropping
• Careful Crop Planning
• Diverse Pasture Plants, both Cool & Warm Season
• Perennial Production Models
Living Roots
20
21. Case Study: Adam and Seth Chappell, Cotton Plant AR
Started using cereal rye as cover crop to control Palmer Amaranth.
After a few years:
“Our only goal initially was to control one weed,” he says. “But other problems like soil
erosion and soil quality also got addressed through the changes. The organic matter in
our sandy loam soil has gone up a full percentage point, and the infiltration rate of the
soil has gone up exponentially. Because of the improved water-holding capacity of the
soil, we don’t have to furrow-irrigate as often as we did before.
“Soil erosion is gone,” he says. “Our fields don’t have gullies, and in the spring when the
wind is blowing, there are no sand clouds over our farm. Any water that comes off the
fields is clean.” All told, the changes the Chappells have made point them toward a
hopeful future.
From: Palmer Amaranth Opened the Door to Cover Crops and No-Till on Arkansas Farm By
Raylene Nickel, 11/26/2018
Living Roots
21
22. • Animals are great nutrient cyclers
– One 1000 lbs. cow will eat ~25 lbs. dry matter/day
– 80% will return to the soil as manure/urine
– 20% will become delicious
– Grazing stimulates plant growth
Include Animals
22
23. In Practice:
• Creatively integrate animals
into cropping systems
– Graze cover crops, rebuild soil
in hay fields
• Use animal manures
(composted preferably) as
fertilizer
• Get animals to do your work
for you
• Support wildlife
Include Animals
23
25. • Soil testing
• On-farm soil assessment
– Color, slake test, infiltration ring, worm count
• Look at the plants
• Record-keeping
– Fertilization, crop rotations, planting dates, yeilds
• Nutrient Density Meter?
How Can You Tell It’s Working?
25
26. • Lower input costs (fertilizer, irrigation, pesticides)
• Comparable/greater yields
• Greater profitability
• Greater stability
“By many calculations, the living soil is the Earth's most
valuable ecosystem, providing ecological services such as
climate regulation, mitigation of drought and floods, soil
erosion prevention, and water filtration, worth trillions of
dollars each year.”
– http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/06/healthy-soil-
microbes-healthy-people/276710/
$oil Health
26
27. What is at Stake?
27
A nation that destroys its
soils destroys itself.
-FDR, 1937
