Easy Steps Growers Can Take To Improve Soil Health

Improved soil health is a key element of gaining regenerative farming certification, a standard many of the largest retailers in the U.S. are demanding from their food producers. But that creates a dilemma on two fronts. First, how do you establish a baseline when soil types and content vary within a single field, much less over an entire operation? A second problem? If you multiply the depth of the topsoil by an acre, the volume will be enormous. Using additives alone to improve soil health is cost prohibitive. What actually has an impact?

We spoke with experts from two groups, Regenified, a certifying company for regenerative farming, and Noble Research Institute, a nonprofit focused on educating farmers and ranchers on soil health and profitability.

Establishing a Baseline

The first step to measuring improvement in a system is, of course, establishing an initial baseline from which to make comparisons. Setting a soil health baseline can be straightforward, even if farms’ climates vary wildly. The goal is to get a picture of where a farm begins its journey so future testing can see how its soil health progresses over time, says Doug Peterson, Director of Standards & Protocol at Regenified.

“We do a variety of soil testing, a variety of field evaluations,” Peterson says.

The list of soil characteristics Regenified evaluates is based on the six principles of soil health:

1. Minimize disturbance
2. Keep soil covered
3. Maximize diversity
4. Maintain living roots
5. Integrate livestock
6. Understand your context

USDA lists only the first five principles. But those engaging closely with working farms quickly realized growers face unique challenges. Integrating livestock into lettuce production, for example, would violate food safety regulations. So Regenified, Noble, and other similar organizations added the sixth criterion.

These six principles can work with any type of agriculture, say both Peterson and Jim Johnson, Product Delivery Manager at Noble Research Institute, whether it’s vegetables, orchards, vineyards, grass, or commodity crops.

“Integrate those principles as much as possible. And then, as you do that, you begin to see what’s going on and integrate them more,” Peterson says.

So how does Peterson set a baseline? First, each farm will have its own baseline and will not compare with other farms, he says. A farm on clay with 40 inches of rain, for example, will have little in common with a farm in an arid region with sandy soil.

Even if farms have different types of soil in one field, they likely still have enough similar characteristics or a crop wouldn’t be put in that field. The different soils in a single field will not differ as much as a humid, sandy Florida field does from a field in Michigan.

“We’ll sample a transect. We’ll go across the rows perpendicularly, so that we get an equal representation of the rows. The inter-row area all the way across a field,” Peterson says.

As for what’s measured, Peterson says they evaluate how each farm is living up to the six principles along with soil tests.

There are several tests Regenified has in its toolbox, some looking at fatty acids, some looking at the bacteria to fungi ratio, and protozoa levels.

But Peterson says there’s one test he’d pick over all others if forced to choose just one: an aggregate stability test.

“The aggregate stability is kind of like the canary in the mine. If we have good aggregate stability, that means we’ve got … living roots in the soil. It most likely means we have good ground cover,” Peterson says.

For more on ways to improve soil health for your crops, click here to continue reading the full article as part of our special report on Soil Health.

In addition, check out the previous reports in Meister’s Global Insight Series covering a range of topics from Irrigation Innovations to Agricultural Technology.