Soil Health Academy-Day 1

Today was the first day of a three day Soil Health Academy field school in Dyersville Iowa.

We covered the basic principles of Regenerative Ag, focusing on the 6 principles of soil health. After a morning of classroom learning and a tasty lunch of local, grass-fed burgers, we headed out to Gibbsfield Ag for hands-on learning on soil evaluation and field observation.

A statement that really hit home with me is that we have lost valuable production skills because of relying on chemicals and pharmaceuticals for an easy, quick fix. Key among those skills is the skill of reflective observation. We fail to see the unintended consequences of our production practices and decisions. We’ve been trained to be technicians; applying canned protocols, usually involving purchased external inputs. Instead, we need to be managers; evaluating every decision for alignment with our long term goals and the principles of soil health.

Other bullet points of learning:

• Implement changes on a gradient; start small, use check strips

• Keep context in mind and stay flexible; don’t get fixated on a single protocol or paradigm

• Management of the water cycle is foundational to soil health. Soil aggregates are a key component of a healthy water cycle

• Graze for what you want, not what you have

• Lack of carbon and lack of biological activity in the soil are the core problems underlying the most common farming challenges

• The majority of organic matter in the soil comes from microbes and root exudates, not from crop residue
  

Tomorrow will focus on adaptive grazing and livestock.