6 Principles of Soil Health

I was recently asked if there was a standard operating procedure for Regenerative Ag. The answer is no, because context and adaptability are foundational to being truly regenerative. The right or best practice in one situation may be less than ideal, or even detrimental, in another. However, there ARE key principles to soil health, which are the underpinning to making decisions to best create soil health. And soil health is the foundation of Regenerative Ag. I give Gabe Brown and the crew at Understanding Ag full credit for creating and promoting this list.

Here is what is becoming the standard set of soil health principles:

1. Consider your Context

2. Minimize Disturbance (mechanical or chemical)

3. Armor the Soil ( biological material on the surface)

4. Increase Diversity (in the plant community and the soil microbes)

5. Living Roots (keep living roots in the soil as much of the year as possible)

6. Integrate Animals (include animals in your production cycle)

CONTEXT

The first principle is context, to which I referred in the opening paragraph. In a holistic management framework, this would include your geography, climate, extant landscape, as well as other element such as financial , social (family and community) and spiritual context. Historical ecological context includes, climate, precipitation, days of sunshine, humidity. Doing things in alignment with your context is foundation from which all decisions should be made.

MINIMAL DISTURBANCE

Mechanical disturbance from tillage destroys soil structure and decreases water infiltration. It has major negative impact on the soil microbiome and other types of soil biology. It also increases oxidation of carbon in the soil, decreasing organic matter. Chemical disturbance in the form of exogenous fertilizers, insecticide, fungicides and weed killers wreak havoc with biological diversity and are devastating to soil microflora, especially critical mycorrhizal fungi.

ARMOR THE SOIL

Keep a biological skin of plant material on the soil at all times. Vegetative cover protects the soil from wind and water erosion and moderates soil temperatures. The optimum temperature for most plant growth is 70 degrees F. At that temperature, 100% of the moisture available to the plant is used for for growth. At a soil temperature of 100 degrees, only 15% of the moisture is available for growth, with the rest lost through evaporation and transpiration. At 130 degrees, 100% of the moisture is lost and at 140 degrees, soil microbes die. Keep in mind that the temperature of bare soil can be considerably hotter than air temp, reaching 100 degrees on sunny 70 degree days.

INCREASE DIVERSITY

It’s important to have diversity both above and below the ground. Increasing the number of plant species growing corresponds with an increase in soil microbial diversity. Nature doesn’t do monocultures. Different plants promote different microbial species, which increase the efficacy of the microbes’ mobilization of nutrients from the soil. Diversity is also important for other parts of the biological system, too. When you have diverse insect populations, you are much less likely to have catastrophic outbreaks of a single pest.

LIVING ROOTS

Cover crops really come into their own with this principle, although a complex cover crop mix is also an important source of plant diversity. Soil structure comes from the aggregates formed by the soil microbiota. Soil microbes require living roots to grow. Soil aggregates are relatively short-lived, so leaving soil bare damages soil structure. Roots are also an important avenue for water infiltration.

INTEGRATE ANIMALS

This is the principle to which many producers have the most resistance. Soils are formed in conjunction with herbivores eating forage and cycling it through their digestive system. Grasslands, in particular, also evolved in conjunction with periodic brief disruption from the hooves of large herds. Finding a way to cycle your plant material through animals will supercharge your regenerative system. It can be cattle, sheep, goats, poultry, or hogs. To be clear, in proper grazing the livestock don’t consume all the vegetation. Typically the goal is to consume 1/3-1/2 of the available forage and trample the rest to provide soil armor.

These principles are universal in that they apply to every type of production; livestock, row crops, orchards, vegetable & fruit or specialty crops. What is important to remember, as I stated starting this blog, is there is no standard formula for regenerative ag. By it’s nature it is adaptive and responsive. Nature is not one-size fits all, and for us to work most effectively with nature, we must be observant and adaptive. Our insistence on forcing biological systems into a static production regimen is one of the reasons we need to regenerate our soil and food ecosystem in the first place,

Much of the material presented here is explained in more detail in the following Understanding Ag’s webinar. If you are interested in learning even more, I highly recommend enrolling the the Soil Health Academy’s Regen Ag 101 course.