Essentially, all life depends upon the soil … There can be no life without soil and no soil without life; they have evolved together. -Charles E. Kellogg, USDA Yearbook of Agriculture, 1938
Soil health is one of the most important topics in agriculture today. Healthy soil is the basis for a healthy farm, no matter what that farm is growing or raising. Healthy soil allows water to infiltrate, has good structure and pore spaces, has high organic matter, and is always covered by litter or growing plants. Take for example the droughts happening in the western United States. Every single drop of rain or irrigated water is precious, but if the land can’t absorb water effectively it will be wasted. That precious water is not useful to the crop if poor structure, compaction, and lack of cover allow that limited water to run off. Here in the northeast we put extra emphasis on controlling run off, preventing erosion and pollution, and regenerating our farm’s soils.
Just recently Cornell Cooperative Extension and the Soil and Water Conservation Districts of Rensselaer County, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Natural Resource Conservation Service partnered to provide an on-farm workshop for farmers to learn more about soil health practices they could implement on their farms. Kinderhook Creek Farm, owned by the Eckhardt family, were gracious hosts to over 50 farmers and agency personnel. Kinderhook Creek Farm assisted in providing dinner to attendees, which included delicious homegrown sweet corn, various vegetables for munching and topping sandwiches, fruits, and desserts.
We started the evening with NRCS Soil Scientist, Olga Vargas and a soil health demonstration. This demonstration illustrated why taking care of your ground is so important. Through multiple simulations, including rainfall simulations on bare ground versus covered ground, clods of soil dropped into beakers of water from continuous cropped versus no-till ground, and infiltration simulations, we were able to get great visuals of the processes taking place on our farms. It was really amazing to see clods of soil taken from continuous cropped ground fall to pieces almost as soon as it touched water (due to its poor structure), while those from the no-till systems held together for the length of the meeting while completely submerged.
We continued our meeting with Frank Gibbs, a professional Soil Scientist and Certified Crop Advisor from Ohio, in a soil pit in a nearby corn field. In this pit, Frank was able to point out the different layers of soil, earth worm holes, depth of rooting, and areas of compaction from travel in the field. He discussed the importance of cover cropping and providing food for the earth worms that often are referred to as “your underground livestock.” One participant asked about the problem of creating a plow pan while using his moldboard plow. Frank responded that he should not be “worried about the hard pan. Being worried about the hardpan,” he said,
“is like being worried about the last shot after you drank the whole bottle. The bigger problem is the burning up of organic matter and the destruction of the soil structure.”
Paul Salon continued the discussion on the use of cover crops in your cropping rotation. Paul is the NRCS Plant Materials Specialist and provided the event with 36 different cover crop seeds and mixes. These were planted on Kinderhook Creek Farm so that participants could get a better idea of what these crops looked like, how they grew, their rooting characteristics, and what to use when. Paul discussed the different types of cover crops and using them for different needs you may have on your farm. For example the tillage radish can be used for compaction or a legume to add nitrogen to the soil. Cover crops we had at our demonstration plots included rye, oats, wheat, barley, triticale, crimson clover, cow peas, sunnhemp, turnips, millet, teff, canola, hairy vetch, and mixes such as the David Brandt Super Scavenger, Jay Fuhrer #4, the Seedway RAR mix, and many more.
Making our way back into the shop, we took a short break and enjoyed ice-cream donated by Stewarts Shops. We then continued with a second presentation from Frank Gibbs, highlighting the importance of soil structure with a video demonstration of how he “makes soil smoke.” In this demonstration Frank uses a smoke machine to illustrate pore spacing, earth worm holes, etc. with smoke rising from 34 inches below the soil surface. It’s really amazing, check out the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eroGrAjlLZk.
A panel consisting of farmer soil health advocates and practitioners were also available for answering questions. These famers were Mark Anderson, a dairy farmer in Washington County, and Matt and Larry Eckhardt who grow commodity crops, vegetables, and livestock in Rensselaer County. Participants asked a range of questions on different topics and were able to get a better understanding of how other local farmers were making use of these practices in real life. Lastly, we ended with participants being able to check out no-till and minimum tillage equipment and ask any further questions they may have.
This meeting was a great success, farmers and agency professionals were able to take home great information that they can use on their farms or with farms that they work with. If we as agriculturalists want a future in farming, if we want our children to carry on the family legacy, and if we want to be good stewards of our land and environment, we need to be concerned about soil. I think Aldo Leopold said it well when he wrote “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” If Ashley can answer any questions for you, she can be contacted at (518) 272-4210 or arp253@cornell.edu.
How can I stand on the ground every day and not feel its power? How can I live my life stepping on this stuff and not wonder at it? -William Bryant Logan, Dirt-The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth
