Why should you care?

Soil regeneration is a topic that is picking up traction recently but there is a lot of conflicting information about what it is and whether or not it works. What I focus on here is biological farming, which is defined as working with soil microbiology to build soil and grow healthier plants. Restoring soil microbiology is a form of soil regeneration since it is the microbiology that has built all of the world's soils in the first place. If you are a gardener or simply want to grow a beautiful lawn, many of the ideas and practices in biological farming can help and I will tailor my content in this blog to that audience. It is, however, an unfortunate reality that many of our current growing practices work against the natural biology and act to degrade our soils or, in a better but still bad way, prevent the biology from building soil back after damage. The time is right for a new method of growing that works with nature instead of against it. Some of the benefits of using biological farming techniques are better water infiltration, healthier and more nutritious plants, reduced cost to grow plants, and significant carbon storage available to anyone with a yard. Yep, the microscopic organisms living in the ground outside of your home can do all of that if you let them. Here I will discuss a little bit of how those tiny soil workers can accomplish all of this.

Plant Health

Most of our plants are struggling and immunocompromised. This is evident by the prevalence of disease and pests that plague our efforts to grow healthy plants. If you have ever tried to grow vegetables or fruits at home, you have probably seen issues related to pests and diseases. The fact is that most of the pests and diseases that are familiar to growers are nature's way of killing sick/weak plants and freeing up resources for healthy thriving plants. To prove my point, consider that almost every disease and pest does not attack just one kind of plant. If all plants, regardless of health, are susceptible to attack, then how are there any plants growing anywhere on the planet? No one is spraying pesticide on every plant all over the world and that certainly was not happening before humans had the technology to do so. The fact is that only sick, old, and struggling plants are getting attacked by pests and diseases (note that invasive species are a bit of an exception here and can kill healthy plants). So why are the plants that we are growing with modern fertilizers and so meticulously taken care of sick? The answer is in our soils. The microorganisms in the soil are actually an important part of a plant's immune system. In fact, having healthy soil can not only make the plants better at fighting off disease but can also provide a kind of chemical cloaking field for most pests. Furthermore, a healthy soil food web will attack and consume most organisms that focus specifically on attacking plants because they are easy prey.

This all sounds pretty good right? It must be expensive. But it is not. It's actually cheaper than most conventional methods of growing. If you think about it, you don’t have to buy anything for pest control or any fertilizer (yes the soil takes care of that as well), and the healthier plants will produce more food since they lose less due to pest pressure. In fact, the only cost that you have is seeds for the plants and biologically active compost (which you can make at home pretty easily). After that, it is just the time spent enjoying the process of watching your plants grow and picking your food/flowers. Weeds are even suppressed and outcompeted with good soil, so the time spent weeding is dramatically reduced. The process to get started is pretty simple too, just top dress the soil with good compost a few times during the growing season, and don’t kill the biology you are trying to establish.

Water

There is another benefit of good soil that is sorely needed in modern-day farming which is increased water infiltration. Depending on where you are in the world you may see this need in a couple of different ways. There are three main effects of poor water infiltration: water runoff, flooding, and erosion. If you have ever gone out into your backyard after a good rain and the ground was a muddy mess, chances are high that you have an issue with water infiltration. Usually, this flooding is caused by the top 4-5 inches of soil being pretty healthy, but a compacted layer of soil exists underneath. In healthy soils, water will soak all the way down to either bedrock or the water table. This depth is usually measured in feet. It is common that the water saturates only the top few inches and then has nowhere to go due to compaction so your yard becomes a bog, at least if you live in a flat area. If you are on a slope, all of the water will run off your yard and into the ditches or gutters around your house. This flooding can cause these systems to quickly reach capacity and cause flooding downstream or even erosion if the flow is fast enough. The issue is all the same, there is some layer in your soil (it can even be right at the surface if the ground is bare) that the water can’t get through, so the water does what it does and goes downhill. The compaction can be caused by many things either physical (like running over it with something heavy) or the absence of organic matter for a prolonged period of time. It is often the case that both factors play a role if you are looking at a lawn near your house. But, an important thing to notice here is, that the water that should be on your property keeping your plants healthy and watered, is gone. This often means that just days after a rain you have to water your plants to keep them alive! This is wasting water and the issue is in your soil. A soil that is healthy has pores and openings that allow the air and water down deep into the soil, and these holes are created and maintained by the natural microbiology native to soils all over the world. Even really damaged soils can be quickly revitalized and allow the water to sink deep into the profile if the biology is reestablished. The biology also will store the water and slowly release it back out into the soil as it starts to dry. This means that after a rain the water sinks deep down into the soil and it stays hydrated long after the rain. In fact, in some areas where the rain typically occurs in one season, the effect of this infiltration can be so strong that most native ecosystems can get all of the water needed for the plants to stay green and productive all year simply by storing it in the soil. In more moderate climates where it rains year-round, this can mean that you don’t have to water your plants. Ever. But you have to get the biology established first.

Climate Change

If that isn’t enough reason to care, how about saving the world? If you have been alive in the past 30 or so years, you have probably heard of climate change. There is no shortage of dire warnings put out about the effect it is having on our planet and the damage it is causing. There is also no shortage of evidence that increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere is a major contributing factor. Concerned denizens of the world have long since wondered how to reverse it and prevent most of the harmful and deadly effects of climate change. However, there is precious little that individuals can do. The solutions presented have mostly been in the realm of governments and large institutions, but since those groups often move slower than an iceberg, it can be frustrating for individuals to hear the warnings and watch the effects on the news. The good news is that there is something that is available to almost everyone in the world that has the ability to dramatically affect the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The solution is soil regeneration! A quick explanation of how this can be accomplished by regenerating the soil is simple: all carbon in all living things in the world has at one point come from the atmosphere. The process in which carbon gets turned into living things is called photosynthesis. If you know anything about plants, you know that they are the things that photosynthesize. This simple fact means that plants are the most effective carbon capture and storage machines known to man. The potential of using plants has been largely unexplored, however, since all plants photosynthesize and respire (that is when oxygen is taken in and CO2 is released like we do when we breathe), and once the plant dies, the decomposition of the organic material releases all of the carbon stored back into the atmosphere. However, consider that most of the healthiest soils in the world have an organic matter composition of about 10-30%. That is, about 10% of the weight of the soil is organic matter which is mostly carbon, and most of the soils we grow food in are about 0.01% organic matter. That organic matter is conserved over time meaning it is 10% now and 10% in 1000 years. If we could restore our soils from 0.01% to 10%, that is about 1000X more carbon stored long-term in the ground beneath our feet. If these practices were done in all lawns in the US, that alone could dramatically affect the rising levels of CO2. If it was done on all the agricultural land in the world? Not only could we stop climate change, but our food would be healthier, cheaper to produce, AND require less water. That is the potential of biological farming and why you should care. However, this science is new and most of the knowledge is academic, and only recently (past 10-15 years) has it been tested in real farming and growing environments. We know what to do, and we know why we want to do it, the issue we now need to figure out is how. That topic is the point of this blog and I hope you will help me along this journey of making the world a better place.

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