Soil 307: Thirsty

Conventional agricultural soils are thirsty. In his book "Your Bodies Many Cries for Water". Dr. B. talks about the critical role that hydration plays in the health of the human body. The same thing applies to the soil. If there isn't enough organic matter in the soil to hold the rainfall our soils won't function properly.

Hydrating our soils is more about having adequate cover on the soil surface and organic matter to hold the moisture than having a certain amount of rainfall. Most cropping regions have enough rainfall, but they may not utilize it well. We should focus on building our soils with the need to retain moisture in mind.

Soil 306: Aged

Soil, like a fine wine, should improve with age. Conventional agricultural soils are aged beyond their years due to our poor farming practices. Our soils are aging, when they should be "youthing", to borrow a term from the health and wellness industry.

Did you know that the North African crest of the Sahara desert was the once the bread basket of the Greek and Roma Empires. What happened to reduce these once fertile soils to one of the largest deserts on the planet.

Soil 305: Confused

Conventional agricultural soils are confused because of the GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) plants and residue that the soil biology is forced to deal with. These new "super plants" have unknown DNA that our soil microbes don't know what to do with, in terms of breaking it down. I think that some of this new DNA is also toxic to soil life as it persists long after is should have been cycled.

Soil 304: Supressed

Conventional agricultural soils are dead (or at least biologically suppressed) due to the use of highly salt based fertilizers like super phosphate, which suppresses soil life and anhydrous ammonia which burns out the organic matter the soil life feeds on.

Soil 303: Depleted

Conventional agricultural soils are depleted of organic matter because we burn out the carbon in the soil by heavy use of anhydrous ammonia. We also export organic matter from the farm when we sell the corn and soybean stalk residue (called stover).

Soil 302: Exhausted

Conventional agricultural soils are exhausted because we don't replace both macro and micro minerals removed by heavy cropping.

Settlers on the prairie would homestead for 7-10 years, exhaust the soil and move on. We avoid the moving on scenario by applying macro minerals N-P-K-Ca. With this regimen the plants look good but the human body and critters we grow for food need  92 minerals.

So what about the other 88 minerals.

Soil 301: Addicted

Conventional agricultural soils and crops are addicted to chemical fertilizer.

Corn is especially addicted to...

Soil Testing

I test my soil with plants.

Soil scientists have learned to test soils for various nutrients. This is done by using strong chemicals to strip off the nutrients or react with the nutrients in the soil and establish a quantitative measurement. I'm always a little skeptical that the strong chemical processes can correctly detect nutrients available to the plants in a organic system that uses biological processes to make nutrients available.

I have never done any soil testing on our farm. Instead I observe the plants. For example...

Are American's Lazy

Are Americans lazy?

I heard a speaker pose this question a while back. His assertion was that as a society we were not as productive as other cultures around the world and it was because we had become lazy.

Well maybe his definition was different than mine, but I don't think we are lazy and here is why.