Some farmers are employing mobile composting cover crop terminators that vacuum up the most recent plant cycle, composts them, and then adding to the farm nutrient cycling, automatically deposits the finished product on living soil where it is reincorporated. These wonderful siem autonomous self-replicating farm management tools also give meat and dairy by-products!?

I've been using ducks to control grasshoppers in my corn, and have found that they can graze a winter wheat cover through the winter (7a, we're a bit South of you) .. that offsets duck feed costs, and keeps the soil microbiome alive 365 days for us - I do not know how to quantify what this does precisely, except to say that we do not need to spend time in the early spring building the microbial load back up, the soil remains loose and retains moisture. Since we are relying on the microbiome for our nutrient capture and delivery instead of fertilizers (aside from what the ducks provide) The time savings is an effective extension to the growing season. If you really want to build soil organic matter, take a look at how a lowland forest does it: Periodic flooding overflows existing banks, and new channels are cut into subsoil. Subsequent years of less flooding allow the new channels to be infilled with leaf litter and debris, pioneer trees establish and stabilize the soil, and the next time flood waters rise, new channels are cut. Older trees are blown down during storms, pulling up subsoil with their roots, leaving pits and mounds that further shape the topography, direct future flood water, and keep water on the surface to feed the ecosystem .. until those pits fill in with organic matter. Dense vines and shrub growth at the edge of forests captures organic matter, allowing soil to build there, as well .. this is happening on mostly flat land .. what most folks like to farm. The accumulation of debris from gullies, pits, and blockage allows more of it to be consumed by biologics instead of oxidizing. We can simulate most of this activity, and accelerate the soil building process by planting hedgerows and alley cropping, establishing surface water ponds and making ditches on contour to catch and hold both water and organic matter .. so long as your corn head isn't TOO wide 😉

We have a tiny commercial vineyard. It is certified Organic by WSDA and Real Organic (tighter standards). We have used no off farm inputs for years, except irrigation water, we get 4-8” precipitation per year. . We produce ingredient labeled wine from grapes grown without any pesticides. Using the EPA definition which would include water. We have sold some of our fruit. $1/lb, record prices for our state on several cultivars. Our 15.2 Km. of vineyard,( 5 acres) can gross $60,000 in a good average year. 100% floor cover. Using naturalized species, mostly grasses and mustards. My experience in trying to add species to the vineyard? Not enough moisture to get much to grow. No tillage except some at planting. Green Cover pollinator mixes are used as part of refugiums adjacent to the vines. We gain top soil when the wind blows and dust is in the air. Unfortunately it’s polluted with pesticides and the toxic stuff called nitrogen fertilizer. Our soil processes it ok. I have the impression worms don’t like these deposits on their surface litter. Zero expense for pesticides, near zero for fertilizer, we do compost everything on the farm, dead stock, winery by product, pomace, lees. Mostly as a process to deal with “waste”, we spread it as compost every few years. We could say we save money by composting. A black number for compost application costs? The advantage of selling wine versus grapes is that the product leaving the farm is 99.99% H2O, CO2. Traces of minerals. We are in the 99 percentile of vineyards in SOM. Hard to hit 1% in our climate/crop matrix but we have. Our native soils are less than .25%. Aridisols. I appreciate the work y’all are doing advocating SOM. Washington State carbon credit auction gives us $1,424 per ton of C. $178/ton for CO2. I think my calculations are accurate. Unfortunately the system to get that to farmers isn’t available.

@keithberns910

Ай бұрын

Thanks Paul! Those are some really great numbers and a testament to your hard work! Keep it going and thanks for being a great example of what biology can do....

Great video on cover crop 🇳🇿❤️

At 24.23. .05% equals .0005 , .0005 times 20 years equal .01 gain in organic matter. Great video

In general can no-till+ cover crops+ good soil health reduce the rain runoff rate to a point less than the infiltration rate such that the field has zero runoff? Would doing this eliminate soil and nutrient loss by water erosion, chemical runoff pollution(value to environment), and save rain water for the cash crop?

@keithberns910

2 ай бұрын

Yes, yes, and yes... Of course there are the huge flood type rain events, but for the most part runoff can virtually be stopped

@dellmerlin6328

2 ай бұрын

​@@keithberns910 When I have the huge runoff rain (western KS) what infiltration rate do I need to have zero runoff? How do we do this?

@keithberns910

2 ай бұрын

@@dellmerlin6328 6 inches per hour infiltration is a good goal to shoot for - that will do 99% of the rainfall events you get. Follow the principles of soil health as much as possible - Keep the Soil Covered, Living Roots, Maximum Diversity, Minimize Disturbance and Integrate Livestock

@joshuafinch9192

Ай бұрын

Hard to answer the exact infiltration rate you'd need, but look to those soil health principles. How can you get the soil covered with either green living plants and/or create a mulch layer? Turning big rain events into net positives begins with slowing down the rain with the physical structure of the plants (dead or alive). Next, once the soil reaches the 'mineral' soil, having that soil cover helps get it to move into the ground. How? Well, many ways, but one is that cool, covered soil fosters life to "work" all the way to the soil surface. I see it time and time again when the soil gets covered, roots, fungi, insects, and worms all begin to do their business all the way up to the top. All that activity creates channels of various sizes for the water to begin percolating into the soil. Next, by building soil aggregates and the organic matter which is required to have them, since they are living infrastructure they have carbon, the water can keep moving down the soil profile as far as life has made it possible to do so. I'm not one to tell others how to farm, but you are fortunate enough to live in a time and place where people have been using these practices for decades. If I were you, I'd find those farmers and give them a call. Ask questions. The most important thing is to just get started and to do so on a scale you find appropriate. Once you are more comfortable, new ideas and stacking practices will come naturally. You already farm, so you can do it!

"compared to conventional farming" (with incentives -- crop insurance, CRP programs, . . .). Maybe you'll cover it; not done with the video yet, but you can look world-wide and see the attack of various governments on the conventional farmers delivering to the coop, let alone inflationary costs and supply chain restrictions on 'conventional' chemicals/fertilizers.

Excellent video. If I don't have cattle, can the soil biology be used to graze the cover crop?

@keithberns910

2 ай бұрын

Yes, that is a very valuable use for the cover crops - often overlooked but still a critical part of the system

@dellmerlin6328

2 ай бұрын

​@@keithberns910 How would I use my soil biology critters to graze the cover crop? Would this be like in field biomass composting?

@keithberns910

2 ай бұрын

@@dellmerlin6328 This is a natural process- the biology will ramp up to help consume the biomass - but if you are really low to start with on the biological levels, some sort of inoculation or supplemental biological additions might be needed

@nickschaps4022

18 күн бұрын

You could also lease it out. I graze sheep in northern IA and lease spring cover crops locally. I rotate 300 head on 5 acre paddocks every few days. I pay $20 per acre, and the farmer gets his cover crops converted to manure.

Third time's a charm.

Dryland?

@newedenfarm

Ай бұрын

He means that he's in a part of the country that doesn't get a lot of rain and isn't irrigated.

@rainturtle5956

Ай бұрын

He is mostly irrigated but didn't distinguish between irrigated and dryland results or rotations

@nickschaps4022

18 күн бұрын

@@rainturtle5956it doesn’t really matter between the two, the outcome is the same. Only difference is that on irrigated ground you could reduce the run time on your well/pivot.

@rainturtle5956

18 күн бұрын

Not even close to the same

@nickschaps4022

18 күн бұрын

@@rainturtle5956 the only difference between irrigated and dry land is water CONTROL. The benefits he qualified monetarily are only going to be more pronounced in an environment where you don’t control the water. Regardless, he doesn’t need to distinguish because the metrics he is measuring the values with are independent of irrigation vs dry land. 1% of OM has the same monetary nutrient value regardless of applied water, same goes for 1mm of topsoil. These values don’t change if you have a pivot.