Soil health project

We are excited to be working with the Colorado Conservation Tillage Association in the FARMS (Farmers advancing regenerative management systems) project. Previously on this blog, we have discussed the importance of soil health and how it relates to all of us. Healthy Soils = Healthy Plants = Healthy Animals = Healthy Humans. Remember, we have a direct link to the soil. Humans are “beings of the soil”.

Quick review, the five main soil health principals (that apply anywhere):

• Keep the soil covered
• Disturb the soil less
• Plant diversity
• Living root as long as possible
• Animal impact

Pasture Crop

Our Soil Health plan involves a number of practices but the one of most interest to us is the idea of accelerating land regeneration through a process called “pasture cropping”. The idea is to add an annual crop into an existing pasture stand of perennial grass. Let’s say we are intrigued by the idea but at the same time question the overall concept.

We question:

• Why would one want to add “inputs” like the cost of seed, labor and drilling, into a system that will produce grass with basically no inputs besides proper grazing management?
• Will the added plant diversity and living root increase soil health more rapidly?
• Will the added crop even survive?

Since the area we are trying pasture cropping is old cropland, it seems easier to justify the effort of pasture cropping. This land was reseeded to grass about 35 years ago and currently has limited plant diversity. We know we can improve this land with grazing alone, but maybe pasture cropping will accelerate the process. It would be more difficult to justify trying this in a native prairie that already has excellent plant diversity.

I guess others thought it was worth investigating, so with the support of the FARMS Project, we will give it a try. Stay tuned as we share more information about the practices we are trying, how we will monitor change and our progress along the way.