612 The Circular Carbon Economy
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#RealisticRegenAg | I’ve been thinking more and more about the circular economy recently. Truly regenerative agriculture will return the nutrients back to the land. It may not be possible to bring it back to the exact piece of land, but starting to get more of these nutrients back to any piece of land is the starting of getting to the goal of regenerative. Most of the articles this month fit into this idea, though mostly with carbon, since that is the hot topic these days.
In case you’re new here, let me introduce myself. I’m an author and independent agronomist from the Western Canadian Prairies specializing in climate-smart agriculture. I focus on scientifically proven practices that benefit the planet and, just as importantly, farmers' economic sustainability. Be sure to visit my website, www.plantsdigsoil.com, to learn about my book “Practical Regeneration” and for services I that I offer for farmers and agribusiness.
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Business Highlight
This month’s highlight will be short. Do you recall seeing me in the media, whether a quote or an full article, and want to find it again? I’ve got them all (as many as I’ve been able to track down) in one place on my site. Check out the media page. If you want a sneak peak to this coming month’s podcast episode, check out “Alkali patches are often not what you think.” It’s an article I wrote for the Lethbridge County Newsletter this summer. I had a lot more that couldn’t fit into print, so I’ll be bringing the entire article to the podcast.
611 Making a Weed into a Crop
Have you ever thought that a weed could become a crop? They seem to grow no matter what you do, so why not find a use for it? The plants we use today for crops have been around for centuries and even for millennia. I heard about a new crop being developed from weed and it got me thinking: How do you go about this? This episode is mostly a thought experiment, but it’s a great way to stretch our thinking on what is a crop, what is a weed, and how weeds could be used as, or mimicked, in cover crops.
When topsoil moves uphill
Tillage erosion is an unseen, slow process. Just a small bit down a hill every year accumulates over the decades and centuries. While it may not be economical to do this on every piece of land, there are places where it can provide a huge yield boost. Where there isn’t such an extreme of soil in the low areas, another tactic can be to use variable rate fertilizer to provide less to the low areas, forcing them to use more organic matter, and giving the upper areas a little more, hopefully helping them to build more organic matter in time.
https://www.producer.com/production/when-topsoil-moves-uphill/
The smell of success: manure and high-residue cover crops can boost potato yields, improve soil health
A sure-fire way to improve the soil is to add manure or compost. As mentioned last month, this isn’t truely regenerative because the organic matter comes from another field that doesn’t get it back. However, in crops that are hard on the soil, like potatoes, this can be a way to supercharge them. When combined with cover crops this increased yields by 28%.
We Need a Strong Public System to Ensure the Future of Cover Crops
Speaking of cover crops, this is a timely article on the need to breed better cover crops. Currently, we just use existing crops as covers. Forages were meant to grow biomass for animal feed, not necessarily to rebuild the soil. What if we focused on breeding for roots? I know there is work on this in the United States, but I’m not aware of it in Canada. Cover crops may not be worth the time and money that a for-profit company can afford. Is there a need for public breeding?
https://spudsmart.com/we-need-a-strong-public-system-to-ensure-the-future-of-cover-crops/
Illinois Studies Explore Converting Wastewater to Fertilizer with Fungal Treatment
Here’s one of the first articles on the circular economy. The best fate for animal manure and food scraps is to go back to the land. I hadn’t been aware of converting it to biocrude oil before, but I guess this is something that is done. This article goes over some new work showing how the wastewater leftover could be turned into fertilizer by using a fungus to release the nutrients.
Purdue and USDA researchers explore carbon burial solutions
I put this article in because it brings up an important environmental disaster that we did over come. It was before my time, but acid rain from industrial processes was so bad in the 1960s and 1970s that it was dissolving stone and corroding metal. The positive from this was that farmers did not need to add sulphur to their fields. They only became aware of this free fertilizer from above in the decades that followed the cleaning up of industry.
I also put this in because it’s an article that could easily lead people to do something that has no impact on the land, or could make it worse. They report that adding calcium and sulphur to fields increased carbon sequestration. The magnitude was not reported, nor the economics. As you’ll hear in my upcoming podcast episode, there is a time and a place to add these nutrients, but you can’t just add them and expect them to work unless they are solving a real problem.
https://agdaily.com/crops/purdue-and-usda-researchers-explore-carbon-burial-solutions
How does tillage affect vineyard soil bacteria?
Here’s another article that could easily lead to people changing practices for no reason. The answer to the headline question is:
“The results showed that tillage had no significant effect compared to the no-tilled samples in the studied area. Water runoff and seasonally changed soil physical and chemical properties affected mainly the bacterial community structures.”
So my question is: Why lead with tillage when it wasn’t a factor?
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2024/07/how-does-tillage-affect-vineyard-soil-bacteria/
Benefits of regen ag still unclear, says EIT: ‘Consumers do not pay attention to soil health when buying food’
When people buy food they buy on price or how they think it will make them feel. This article has some interesting insights in how we talk to the non-farming population about what we do on the farm.
What exactly does “regenerative” mean in fashion?
Speaking of the non-farming population, the fashion world is completely foreign to me. This is a well thought out article on how fashion needs to be thinking regenerative - from fibre back to the soil. I’ll admit that I cringed a bit on what they think regenerative agriculture is, but the concept is sturdy.
https://fashionunited.in/news/fashion/what-exactly-does-regenerative-mean-in-fashion/2024073046017
On farms in Texas and Mississippi, this giant mobile machine is helping fight climate change
To end, here’s an article about making biochar in-situ. It wasn’t clear if the biochar goes right back on the land or is accumulated and sold, but the concept is to use local materials in mobile machines. I know that large amounts of residue on corn fields is a problem for planting the following year. I also know that residue breakdown does release greenhouse gases. In this article they argue that they are interrupting this process and sequestering carbon by turning it into biochar and improving the productivity of the land. I question the lifecycle analysis - are the emissions from the residues really higher than all the expense of machinery and fuel? If it helps the land, perhaps it is a good thing.
However, I have worries that people see this and think it is widely adaptable. Biochar works on acid soils. The origins of biochar are it’s use for thousands of years by tribes in the Amazon. In my area, with geologically young soils, the pH is high, and when you apply biochar you either do nothing or you lower the productivity of the soil*.