Patrick O’Neill

Soil Health Services, PBC

SWGLA Conference

18 Feb 2016

We Are Growing Food for Our Families and Friends to Eat

Adding Value To Local Economy By Taking Animals To Finish

Nutrient Density in Food, Healthier Soils, & Least-Risk Exposures To Entire Living System Are What We Desire

What’s Happening In The Soil….This Is The Area Less Visible, But Of Critical Importance

Clues To Photosynthetic Rate, Microbial Diversity & Activity Are In The Soil, But You’ll Need To Dig and Look

Spade Is The Tool Of Choice To Investigate

Soil Cannot Form In the Absence of Plants

Photosynthesis Is The Process By Which The Soil Can Live and Become More Fertile

Sunlight Farming =

Managing Photosynthetic Capacity

&

Photosynthetic Rate

Dr. Christine Jones

Start With The Plants The Path From Atmospheric Carbon to Soil Carbon is Photosynthesis

No Green Leaves Means Solar Panels Can Not Gather Energy to Put Carbon Into Soil

Biomass Production & Decomposition, As Compared to Root Exudate Carbon Deposition ---These Processes Can Result In Very Different Functions Within Soil

Feed is wasted ONLY IF NOT optimized for soil cover – ground left bare is ground left to starve and waste away, to function poorly for you when rain, snow, and/or irrigation do occur

The soil is a living ecosystem that needs moisture and food and carbon inputs, even when the herd is not present

HUGE challenge is to begin to see ground cover as protection for the land, future food for the soil, which will provide potential to have even more pasture in the future

Ranchers not thinking about soil health tend to view residue left after the herd grazes as wasted feed

Croppers not thinking deeply about soil health tend to discount the importance of residue and regard it as trash – also tend to push nitrogen fertilizer to detriment of soil function

Both tend to discount the critical role of diversity in plant species engaged

Cow-Calf Operations tend to maximize available feed resources, allowing Cows to ride rollercoaster of compensatory gain ---works great for short-term gains towards Cow-Calf operation

Same strategy falls apart and causes added TIME ( time = feed = cost & greenhouse gas emissions ) when working with Grass Finishing

Near total ground cover for the bulk of the year, maximum time of living plant activity from diversity of living communities, and well-timed grazing can deliver:

- cattle able to gain steady and forage able to recover

- soils with improved infiltration rates, net positive carbon deposition into soil, available water holding capacity, aggregate stability, and increased microbial diversity

Cool Season Cover CropBuilding Soils with Cattle and Crop DiversityTurn In Date: July 6, 2015 (p.m.)Turn Out Date: July 9, 2015 (a.m.)Herdsman: Audrey Rose Oswald

Oswald Ranch Cased Study by Jay Fuhrer, NRCS, Burleigh County, ND

Oswald RanchBurleigh County, ND

Red CloverForage OatForage PeaSpring TriticaleHairy VetchTurnipItalian Rye

Oswald Ranch

Oswald Ranch

Single Wire Electric45 Minute InstallationHarvest Goal: 30-40%

First Grazing - 150 Pair10 Acres (Total Field is 30 Acres)150 Pair X 3 Days = 45 Grazing Days/Acre

10 Acres

Oswald Ranch

Oswald Ranch

Soil Monitoring 10/22/2015Ungrazed Cover CropPLFA 3612 ng/gSolvita 82 ppm CTotal Organic Carbon 219 ppm C

Soil Monitoring 10/22/2015Grazed Cover CropPLFA 5262 ng/gSolvita 176 ppm CTotal Organic Carbon 246 ppm C

Carbon Enhancement - Full Season Multi Specie Cover Crop

Berg Ranch Cased Study by Jay Fuhrer, NRCS, Burleigh County, ND

Berg RanchBurleigh County

Carbon EnhancementWinter Graze Half The Covers

Berg Ranch

Carbon EnhancementWinter Feed Bales on the Grazed Cover Acres

Berg Ranch

Berg Ranch - April 2015 MonitoringWht Stubble CC

CC/Feeding• Solvita ppm C 39.8 54.5 68.7• Total Organic C, ppm C 239 301 325

Plant Available• Nitrogen, lbs N/A 42.6 74.8 130.4• Phosphorus, lbs P2O5/A 22.3 33.2 37.6• Potassium, lbs K2O/A 120.0 187.9 234.6

Berg Ranch

Diversity of plant species – targeted to address the resource concerns of BOTH GRAZING HERD AND THE SOIL

Do your best to anticipate when the herd will be on the forage, what the animals’ nutritional requirement will be at that moment in their lives, and adjust seed mixes to suit

Cool & warm season broadleaves, legumes, brassicas, cool & warm season grasses – most crops have potential of being great feed, and some crops have potential for doing very specific jobs in the soil (relative to resource concerns like maintaining surface residue, breaking compacted layers, etc)

Microbial primers as an option to consider – capacity to build a fungal-dominated soil microbial community

Cost Is A Definite Consideration – Doing Nothing or Changing Nothing Also Has A Cost

Quality Counts: Compost – Compost Tea –Compost Extract

Potential for Quick Response Could Involve Soil Inoculants with Fungal-Dominated Compost (and potential for DIY); Seed Inoculants using Mycorrhiza, Azosporillum, Rhizobium

Cover Crop Seed – Variety of Crop Matters

Diverse Mixes in pasture or grazed cover crop mixes keep risks to herd low – nitrates, prussic acid, imbalanced feeds, etc.

Better chance at sustaining animals well, and better chance for liveweightgains

Examples From Variety Trials In Soils That Are Starting To Be Managed For Soil Health:

Your operation’s goal, and the resource concerns of the soil & of the cash crop to be marketed cannot be overlooked

Otherwise the soil and/or the payday crop can go backwards on you and your goal will not be met

Potato Cropper Example:Choosing the right mix of seeds can put you well on your way…..

Not being cautious when considering which cultivars to bring to the farm this year could send you down a road you hadn’t intended to travel….

Weed management in cover crops - a great challenge & opportunity

Integrating Control Measures – Choosing competitive cultivars; use of high seed rates; thrifty use of water & disturbance at time of crop germination; vigilance and at-the-ready to terminate the alternate crops prior to weeds setting seed – grazing, rolling, chopping, incorporating, etc.

From experience in the cool San Luis Valley, it takes pigweed (one of the fast-seed setters) roughly 50 days after planting a cover crop in June for the weed to begin to develop firm seed

Grazing Potential --- Animal Impact, Photosynthetic Capacity, Photosynthetic Rate --- Each Can Be Affected Through Managed Grazing, Which Impacts How Fast You Can Grow Soil

Olathe, ColoradoSweetgrass COOPDiverse Summer Cover Crop Mix

Summer Grown Cover Crops Windrowed