1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,320 And that's kind of what agriculture is focused on, is that we kill everything else except 2 00:00:04,320 --> 00:00:06,120 for the one plant that we got there. 3 00:00:06,120 --> 00:00:10,000 And these farmers that start to get into soil health, they start to realize, well, it's 4 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:14,160 not about death, it's about life, and it's about building this ecosystem, and that soil 5 00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:18,600 is alive, and it's not just a medium that we top in some chemistry to, and then watch 6 00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:24,320 a plant grow and harvest it, that this whole system is built on a living ecosystem. 7 00:00:24,320 --> 00:00:27,840 And those farmers get really excited when they start to realize that they're part of 8 00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:28,840 this life. 9 00:00:28,840 --> 00:00:44,520 Welcome to the 352nd installment of Ear to the Ground, the Land Stewardship Project's 10 00:00:44,520 --> 00:00:50,280 podcast on family farming, regenerative agriculture, community food systems, and local democracy. 11 00:00:50,280 --> 00:00:53,540 I'm Brian DeVore, editor of the Land Stewardship Letter. 12 00:00:53,540 --> 00:00:59,320 No doubt about it, bringing soil back to life is the bedrock of regenerative farming. 13 00:00:59,320 --> 00:01:03,600 All well and good, but sometimes when I'm attending a workshop or field day and the 14 00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:08,680 folks start talking about building life in the soil, I'm not so sure if I always understand 15 00:01:08,680 --> 00:01:10,860 just exactly what that means. 16 00:01:10,860 --> 00:01:16,880 It can be especially frustrating when soil scientists start talking about microbes, microinvertebrates, 17 00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:22,440 macroinvertebrates, nematodes, bacteria, and mycorrhizal fungi in a way that it's assumed 18 00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:27,280 we all read the same textbook and looked through the same electron microscope as they did. 19 00:01:27,280 --> 00:01:32,080 It doesn't help that I got a C when I took a soils class in college, and that was a bit 20 00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:33,320 of a gift. 21 00:01:33,320 --> 00:01:37,480 If the regenerative ag movement is to become more mainstream, it's critical that farmers 22 00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:42,520 have ways to assess the life in their soil without always relying on complex testing 23 00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:45,400 systems that only someone with a PhD can decipher. 24 00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:49,560 That's why what someone like Stephanie McLean does is so invaluable. 25 00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:53,920 Stephanie is a state soil health specialist for the Minnesota office of the USDA's Natural 26 00:01:53,920 --> 00:01:55,880 Resources Conservation Service. 27 00:01:55,880 --> 00:02:01,160 Before working in the Gopher State, Stephanie focused on soil health for the NRCS in Indiana. 28 00:02:01,160 --> 00:02:05,520 This summer, I had the opportunity to see her present at two field days. 29 00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:10,560 In both cases, she provided farmers in-depth and yet easily accessible descriptions of 30 00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:15,280 what to look for when trying to determine if they are indeed building soil that's 31 00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:20,120 full of life, or are instead undercutting its ability to be productive and resilient 32 00:02:20,120 --> 00:02:21,240 in the long term. 33 00:02:21,240 --> 00:02:25,720 Stephanie shared some basic monitoring techniques that can be done with a shovel, some water, 34 00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:27,660 and a few red solo cups. 35 00:02:27,660 --> 00:02:32,360 She also emphasized that we should be looking for life not just underground, but above ground 36 00:02:32,360 --> 00:02:33,360 as well. 37 00:02:33,360 --> 00:02:37,520 After a presentation she gave at a southwestern Minnesota crop farm owned and operated by 38 00:02:37,520 --> 00:02:41,980 Jerry and Nancy Ackerman, Stephanie chatted with me about how to go about looking for 39 00:02:41,980 --> 00:02:44,040 signs of life in a crop field. 40 00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:49,280 She warned, gaining knowledge about a farm's ecosystem can significantly alter how you 41 00:02:49,280 --> 00:02:50,580 approach managing it. 42 00:02:50,580 --> 00:02:55,720 As Stephanie makes clear, whether it's microbes beneath our feet or insects buzzing above the 43 00:02:55,720 --> 00:03:01,080 surface, once you start looking for life, you begin seeking ways to prevent death. 44 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:05,660 There are so many things to get excited about when we think about life in the soil. 45 00:03:05,660 --> 00:03:09,400 Even when we talk about the definition of soil health, you know, the last part of that 46 00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:14,320 definition talks about a living, breathing ecosystem, and that ecosystem is built on 47 00:03:14,320 --> 00:03:18,800 all of those living, breathing organisms that are thriving or hopefully thriving in our 48 00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:19,800 soil. 49 00:03:19,800 --> 00:03:22,200 So some of the biggest things that I like to look for if I'm going to go out into a 50 00:03:22,200 --> 00:03:26,400 field and dig a hole and start talking to farmers about what I see, first thing that 51 00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:29,040 I really like to talk about are earthworms. 52 00:03:29,040 --> 00:03:33,500 Just kind of looking for those earthworms and identifying that they're there or whether 53 00:03:33,500 --> 00:03:34,500 they're not there. 54 00:03:34,500 --> 00:03:39,640 I'm always so interested by the fact that you can walk out into a field and say to people, 55 00:03:39,640 --> 00:03:41,360 do you see the earthworms here? 56 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:45,320 And often they just look around at the field and they say, I don't see any earthworms. 57 00:03:45,320 --> 00:03:49,440 And the whole surface of that field can be littered with earthworm middens, right? 58 00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:55,360 All those tiny little mounds of residue that they've pulled over the caps of their tunnels 59 00:03:55,360 --> 00:03:58,800 to protect that earthworm channel as it goes down into the soil. 60 00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:00,080 So those middens are everywhere. 61 00:04:00,080 --> 00:04:05,000 So finding those first right away and just identifying these earthworms are here and 62 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:08,080 that part of what they're doing as they pull that residue over that hole is then they're 63 00:04:08,080 --> 00:04:11,680 pulling residue down deep into that soil. 64 00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:15,960 And then as they're skimming the bacteria off the surface of that residue to consume 65 00:04:15,960 --> 00:04:21,360 that bacteria, they're then also redepositing that bacteria in other places of the soil. 66 00:04:21,360 --> 00:04:27,520 So not only are they moving residue around and providing that tillage in terms of making 67 00:04:27,520 --> 00:04:31,640 these macro pores and those channels in the soil, but they're also putting bacteria throughout 68 00:04:31,640 --> 00:04:32,840 the soil profile. 69 00:04:32,840 --> 00:04:34,920 So they just play such an important role. 70 00:04:34,920 --> 00:04:39,800 And I look at them as like those keystone or those capstone species, like, oh, we have 71 00:04:39,800 --> 00:04:40,800 earthworms here. 72 00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:45,880 This is amazing, you know, especially like that first field day where we met Brian. 73 00:04:45,880 --> 00:04:48,240 That field is a really sandy field. 74 00:04:48,240 --> 00:04:53,000 So we don't see a lot of earthworms that like to live around in sandy soils because it just 75 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:57,400 doesn't feel good on their skin on the outside to have that grainy texture. 76 00:04:57,400 --> 00:05:02,880 So you know when you see earthworms in more sandier soils that you're starting to see 77 00:05:02,880 --> 00:05:04,920 life and function come back. 78 00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:07,240 So that's the first thing that I like to look for. 79 00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:12,720 But the other thing that I like to look for sometimes isn't as much about the organisms 80 00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:15,920 themselves, but what the organisms are doing. 81 00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:21,000 Lots of times I like to look in the soil for what the aggregates in the soil look like. 82 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:24,640 And when we look in that soil, to try to look for those aggregates is another thing that 83 00:05:24,640 --> 00:05:25,760 I like to do. 84 00:05:25,760 --> 00:05:30,440 And when I talk about a soil aggregate, we're really hitting on, you know, that it's not 85 00:05:30,440 --> 00:05:35,640 just sand and silt and clay, those mineral particles, but it's all the life that comes 86 00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:41,280 together to help bind and bond the sand, silt, and clay together with organic matter and 87 00:05:41,280 --> 00:05:42,280 plant roots. 88 00:05:42,280 --> 00:05:46,800 And it's the fungal hyphae and the bacteria all working together to create this amazing 89 00:05:46,800 --> 00:05:51,200 thing that we call an aggregate that when we have high functioning soil and we have 90 00:05:51,200 --> 00:05:55,840 life in our system, we see aggregate formation occurring. 91 00:05:55,840 --> 00:06:00,320 In highly tilled soils or in soils devoid of life, we don't see the aggregates like 92 00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:03,320 we do in high functioning healthy soils. 93 00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:07,800 And so I really like to look for those things because that indicates to me that there's 94 00:06:07,800 --> 00:06:14,880 a population in the soil of bacteria and fungi that their main work as workers in our soil 95 00:06:14,880 --> 00:06:19,240 is to coat those aggregates with biological glues so that they stay water stable, so that 96 00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:22,920 when it rains they hold together and they maintain those pore spaces and everything 97 00:06:22,920 --> 00:06:23,920 like that. 98 00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:27,800 And so that's one of the other things I like to look for a lot is worms and aggregates. 99 00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:29,840 But there's other things you can look for as well. 100 00:06:29,840 --> 00:06:32,920 The other thing I like to look for besides worms if you don't always see them is I love 101 00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:34,960 looking for earthworm eggs. 102 00:06:34,960 --> 00:06:37,300 A lot of people don't know what an earthworm egg looks like. 103 00:06:37,300 --> 00:06:40,240 So finding these tiny little cocoons is what they're called. 104 00:06:40,240 --> 00:06:46,800 And they almost kind of look like a tiny little white bean and they're slightly squishy. 105 00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:51,120 And to see an earthworm be born out of those cocoons is kind of an amazing thing. 106 00:06:51,120 --> 00:06:53,400 So those are other things I look for. 107 00:06:53,400 --> 00:06:56,880 Going back a little bit to the glues, is that the glomulin that people talk about? 108 00:06:56,880 --> 00:07:01,920 So glomulin is one of the main things that we find that's coating those aggregates and 109 00:07:01,920 --> 00:07:02,920 other things like that. 110 00:07:02,920 --> 00:07:06,320 But glomulin isn't the only thing. 111 00:07:06,320 --> 00:07:11,560 One of the things I like people to think about is do we ever see a dry earthworm in the soil? 112 00:07:11,560 --> 00:07:12,560 And we don't, right? 113 00:07:12,560 --> 00:07:15,120 If we see a dry earthworm, that's a dead earthworm. 114 00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:20,080 So earthworms constantly are pumping mucus out of their skin as well. 115 00:07:20,080 --> 00:07:25,280 Like when you get an earthworm out of a field, lots of times they're coated in mucus and 116 00:07:25,280 --> 00:07:28,800 the soil where they were sitting is full of mucus as well. 117 00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:33,280 And so those things that they're putting out of their skin as well is helping to build 118 00:07:33,280 --> 00:07:34,280 aggregates. 119 00:07:34,280 --> 00:07:38,180 So they're coating those soil particles and helping to keep them stable. 120 00:07:38,180 --> 00:07:43,840 And those earthworm channels, they almost are then kind of maintained because the earthworm 121 00:07:43,840 --> 00:07:47,240 has burrowed into the soil and created that channel. 122 00:07:47,240 --> 00:07:50,600 They've lined that channel with a little bit of that mucus from their skin. 123 00:07:50,600 --> 00:07:55,800 Then they then lined that channel again with castings, worm poop, that they've lined that 124 00:07:55,800 --> 00:07:56,800 worm channel with. 125 00:07:56,800 --> 00:08:01,600 And so all of a sudden we have this macro pore that's maintained so that when we have 126 00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:06,040 excessive rainfall events and our soil pores start to get saturated, earthworm channels 127 00:08:06,040 --> 00:08:10,720 play a really important role for a very rapid air and water exchange so water can go in 128 00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:12,420 those channels really quickly. 129 00:08:12,420 --> 00:08:17,040 And then as that water soaks in, it can also pull oxygen back into the soil really quickly. 130 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:19,720 So earthworms play a role in building aggregates as well. 131 00:08:19,720 --> 00:08:23,680 But it's mostly our bacteria and our fungi that are doing that. 132 00:08:23,680 --> 00:08:28,040 And one of the things I always like to think about when we talk about those aggregates 133 00:08:28,040 --> 00:08:32,480 is that bacteria and that fungi, they're working to build a stable home. 134 00:08:32,480 --> 00:08:35,340 So those glues are keeping those aggregates stable. 135 00:08:35,340 --> 00:08:40,560 And that's not just benefiting infiltration and plant rooting depth and many of the other 136 00:08:40,560 --> 00:08:45,400 things that we talk about, but it also is sustaining their habitat. 137 00:08:45,400 --> 00:08:49,600 If their habitat is loose soil and they're constantly trying to coat glues around it 138 00:08:49,600 --> 00:08:53,900 and it keeps getting tilled over and over again, that home becomes something that's 139 00:08:53,900 --> 00:08:59,160 not able to be maintained or it takes more work than they have energy to build that home. 140 00:08:59,160 --> 00:09:03,120 So they're constantly coating those soils with glue because they're building a home 141 00:09:03,120 --> 00:09:08,140 for them to thrive and then continue to do their jobs, which in many cases are continuing 142 00:09:08,140 --> 00:09:14,480 to recoat the soil because water stable aggregates, those glues on the surface of those aggregates 143 00:09:14,480 --> 00:09:19,360 only last for maybe a month at the most because it's a carbon source. 144 00:09:19,360 --> 00:09:23,840 So as a carbon source, that becomes a food source for some other microbe. 145 00:09:23,840 --> 00:09:28,800 And so those organisms that are coating those aggregates with glues are doing this all the 146 00:09:28,800 --> 00:09:29,800 time. 147 00:09:29,800 --> 00:09:32,440 Building an aggregate is not a one and done thing. 148 00:09:32,440 --> 00:09:35,840 It's a lifelong process of continually maintaining aggregates. 149 00:09:35,840 --> 00:09:36,840 It's a continuum. 150 00:09:36,840 --> 00:09:38,720 Yep, exactly. 151 00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:42,360 So building those aggregates and then other things that microbes do in the soil, which 152 00:09:42,360 --> 00:09:44,280 is cycling nutrients, right? 153 00:09:44,280 --> 00:09:49,140 Helping to break down residues, saprophytic fungi and other organisms like that to help 154 00:09:49,140 --> 00:09:53,600 break down or simplify those residues so they can release plant available nutrients. 155 00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:59,080 All of these functions that occur in the soil are microbially driven processes. 156 00:09:59,080 --> 00:10:04,260 And so having those organisms in there functioning at a high level makes that whole process become 157 00:10:04,260 --> 00:10:05,260 more efficient. 158 00:10:05,260 --> 00:10:09,520 I was struck by, you had talked about this at the field day we were at a couple weeks 159 00:10:09,520 --> 00:10:14,080 ago how this year in particular, this has been a big issue with all the heavy rains 160 00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:16,960 we've been getting, how much crusting we've been getting. 161 00:10:16,960 --> 00:10:25,320 And if you can build that good aggregate structure, because what is it, the pound force of poundage 162 00:10:25,320 --> 00:10:28,920 that a raindrop can have, it's pretty heavy duty. 163 00:10:28,920 --> 00:10:31,680 And it really can lead to crusting. 164 00:10:31,680 --> 00:10:35,280 And then it kind of builds on itself the more it crusts, the more it just runs off and it 165 00:10:35,280 --> 00:10:36,280 doesn't soak in. 166 00:10:36,280 --> 00:10:37,960 I couldn't agree with you more. 167 00:10:37,960 --> 00:10:42,800 So I've been in fields up and down Minnesota this year and even into Iowa a little ways. 168 00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:46,400 They actually let me go into Iowa for some field days. 169 00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:50,960 And I'll be heading over to South Dakota next week for a few other field days as well. 170 00:10:50,960 --> 00:10:55,960 And every field that I dig in, I keep finding that surface layer maybe an inch, maybe a 171 00:10:55,960 --> 00:10:57,280 little bit deeper. 172 00:10:57,280 --> 00:10:59,800 And it's just this hard packed area. 173 00:10:59,800 --> 00:11:02,000 And right above that, it's just very crusted. 174 00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:08,120 And even in some of our highest functioning soils, we were running into having this slight 175 00:11:08,120 --> 00:11:13,240 crust at the surface because of when the rain was coming this spring, we had a lot of bare 176 00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:17,840 soils or maybe we did have some cover on there, but maybe we got planted and then some of 177 00:11:17,840 --> 00:11:18,960 our residues broke down. 178 00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:23,000 And so we just had soils that were really sensitive at a time of year this spring and 179 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:25,280 they just got pounded with rains. 180 00:11:25,280 --> 00:11:28,880 And then we kind of are seeing an increased crusting because of that. 181 00:11:28,880 --> 00:11:30,960 It is something to be concerned about, right? 182 00:11:30,960 --> 00:11:32,120 That crusting. 183 00:11:32,120 --> 00:11:36,640 But I also realize when I go into these high functioning systems, these soil health systems 184 00:11:36,640 --> 00:11:41,880 where we have a lot of active soil biology, that this snapshot in time where we might 185 00:11:41,880 --> 00:11:46,380 see some crusted soil there, I know that that farmer also sees it as well. 186 00:11:46,380 --> 00:11:50,360 And part of the thing that that farmer is thinking about is how can I get cover back 187 00:11:50,360 --> 00:11:55,320 on that soil to protect that surface and get that crust to go away and get the biology 188 00:11:55,320 --> 00:12:01,040 to come back up to the surface and re-coat those soil particles with glues and re-aggregate 189 00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:02,040 that soil. 190 00:12:02,040 --> 00:12:06,880 And even, I've even done some slump assessments where we compare aggregates from one field 191 00:12:06,880 --> 00:12:12,280 to the next and even in some fields that looked, had a look of crusting at the surface, but 192 00:12:12,280 --> 00:12:14,760 it came from a soil health system. 193 00:12:14,760 --> 00:12:20,560 We put them in the water and we did the slump assessment and they still held together well. 194 00:12:20,560 --> 00:12:25,200 Better than again a field of same soil type that was in a full width tillage that was 195 00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:26,200 highly crusted. 196 00:12:26,200 --> 00:12:31,720 So we do see those things because again when we look at soil health and soil function, 197 00:12:31,720 --> 00:12:36,440 we're always looking at a snapshot in time and that snapshot in time is extremely influenced 198 00:12:36,440 --> 00:12:41,340 by the local conditions that's occurring right there at that time frame or like the extreme 199 00:12:41,340 --> 00:12:43,200 rainfall events that we had this spring. 200 00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:47,760 And when we have those driving rains like you said, they can be hitting the soil surface, 201 00:12:47,760 --> 00:12:50,160 those raindrops at up to 20 miles an hour. 202 00:12:50,160 --> 00:12:54,840 And so that can create surface compaction and nobody can deny that. 203 00:12:54,840 --> 00:12:58,720 And even in highly functioning soils, we can have some of that happen. 204 00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:02,800 But the important thing is that we have that soil biology there. 205 00:13:02,800 --> 00:13:07,360 We have that resiliency so that when the time is right, when the conditions are there, when 206 00:13:07,360 --> 00:13:11,880 we get that cover back on that area, on that soil, that those organisms can go to work 207 00:13:11,880 --> 00:13:15,540 to restore that function, to rebuild those aggregates. 208 00:13:15,540 --> 00:13:20,760 And that's the amazing thing about the resiliency of these systems is that we might have a year 209 00:13:20,760 --> 00:13:26,040 or a part of a season where something happens and it has a negative impact, but that system 210 00:13:26,040 --> 00:13:27,380 is able to recover. 211 00:13:27,380 --> 00:13:30,560 And we see that resiliency time and time again. 212 00:13:30,560 --> 00:13:34,600 And that resiliency is the exciting part of soil health, right? 213 00:13:34,600 --> 00:13:40,240 That it's like the ability of soils to recover and continue to function gives us hope that 214 00:13:40,240 --> 00:13:45,420 we can rebuild all soils and restore function on every soil out there. 215 00:13:45,420 --> 00:13:50,240 The first time I was kind of introduced to this idea of soil glues and aggregate structure, 216 00:13:50,240 --> 00:13:54,320 it was at a field day in North Dakota, and they were talking about this idea of these 217 00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:59,360 glues that sometimes you can have erosion that's not the classic hitting the surface 218 00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:04,120 and running off of erosion, but sometimes soil can kind of almost erode from inside 219 00:14:04,120 --> 00:14:05,120 a little bit. 220 00:14:05,120 --> 00:14:06,120 Can you think... 221 00:14:06,120 --> 00:14:10,320 I find that fascinating and I think that's something people don't think about at all, 222 00:14:10,320 --> 00:14:13,240 what damage that can do and how that can happen. 223 00:14:13,240 --> 00:14:18,000 When I think about that, like you said, we have wind erosion, we have water erosion, 224 00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:20,560 and often those times... 225 00:14:20,560 --> 00:14:24,560 This might be my little bit of a soap box here, but we'll go back into the story, the 226 00:14:24,560 --> 00:14:26,120 thing that you're asking about. 227 00:14:26,120 --> 00:14:31,160 So often those things about erosion, we talk about those as the big problems that we have, 228 00:14:31,160 --> 00:14:34,600 these wind erosion and this water erosion. 229 00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:41,800 But I always like to argue just a little bit that those are just the visual cues of other 230 00:14:41,800 --> 00:14:45,440 problems that we have, which is a lack of infiltration. 231 00:14:45,440 --> 00:14:47,880 So if we don't have infiltration, we have erosion. 232 00:14:47,880 --> 00:14:51,840 So is erosion the problem or is the lack of infiltration the problem? 233 00:14:51,840 --> 00:14:55,960 And the reason why we don't have infiltration is because we don't have water stable aggregates. 234 00:14:55,960 --> 00:15:00,480 So if we take the time to kind of almost peel that onion back a little bit and really think 235 00:15:00,480 --> 00:15:06,600 about what is our root cause problem on some of these landscapes, problem isn't erosion. 236 00:15:06,600 --> 00:15:12,800 Erosion is the result of other problems, which is the inability of a soil to function and 237 00:15:12,800 --> 00:15:14,280 infiltrate that water. 238 00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:20,880 I mean, seriously, in high functioning systems, we want that rain drop to soak in where it 239 00:15:20,880 --> 00:15:21,880 lands. 240 00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:27,920 If it has to travel someplace to go soak into the soil, it's probably taking soil with it. 241 00:15:27,920 --> 00:15:30,080 It's probably taking other things with it. 242 00:15:30,080 --> 00:15:33,160 Ideally, we want that water to soak in where it lands. 243 00:15:33,160 --> 00:15:37,320 And so if it can't soak in where it lands, the result is, again, weakened aggregates and 244 00:15:37,320 --> 00:15:40,880 then that water getting carried off with, or that soil getting carried off with the 245 00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:45,760 water or then that system dries and we have that powder at the surface and it gets blown 246 00:15:45,760 --> 00:15:46,760 away. 247 00:15:46,760 --> 00:15:49,720 When we think about other forms of erosion that we have out there, that thing that you 248 00:15:49,720 --> 00:15:54,440 were talking about in North Dakota, I like to think about it in terms of vertical erosion. 249 00:15:54,440 --> 00:15:58,600 So when we have that rain drop impact right on the surface of our soil, if that water 250 00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:02,200 can't soak in, it's sitting at the surface of our field. 251 00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:05,640 And so our sand, silt, and clay particles, if we don't have aggregates, we just have 252 00:16:05,640 --> 00:16:07,080 individual grains, right? 253 00:16:07,080 --> 00:16:11,080 And so those sand, silt, and clay particles will get hit by that rain drop impact at 20 254 00:16:11,080 --> 00:16:14,720 miles an hour and then the sands and the silts will go flying. 255 00:16:14,720 --> 00:16:19,400 And then wherever those sands or those silts kind of land, they land somewhere else in 256 00:16:19,400 --> 00:16:20,800 the field. 257 00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:24,480 Sometimes they say those sands can even fly up to feet away from where that rain drop 258 00:16:24,480 --> 00:16:25,480 impact is. 259 00:16:25,480 --> 00:16:30,120 And wherever they land, they then go into solution and then they start to soak into 260 00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:35,880 the water or soak into the soil surface with the water and start to plug up the pores. 261 00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:38,360 And so I think of it as vertical erosion. 262 00:16:38,360 --> 00:16:42,760 If those soil particles, especially if we don't have a hill slope, we have a field that's 263 00:16:42,760 --> 00:16:45,920 maybe a little bit more level, that water doesn't run off right away. 264 00:16:45,920 --> 00:16:48,600 It just sits there in ponds on the surface of our field. 265 00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:53,800 And then so those pores that are at the surface of our field, the silt particles, even the 266 00:16:53,800 --> 00:16:58,680 clay particles will start to kind of go into those pores and plug them up and then restrict 267 00:16:58,680 --> 00:17:00,460 infiltration even more. 268 00:17:00,460 --> 00:17:03,800 And we're seeing that to be a really big problem, right? 269 00:17:03,800 --> 00:17:07,480 That vertical erosion, that we're not having runoff, we're not seeing anything happen like 270 00:17:07,480 --> 00:17:11,960 that, but it's eroding the soil right where it sits and plugging up those pores, restricting 271 00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:13,320 infiltration. 272 00:17:13,320 --> 00:17:18,040 And I think that's a bigger problem than anyone ever thinks about is vertical erosion. 273 00:17:18,040 --> 00:17:23,120 I guess that explains a little bit why no-till definitely is going to help because you're 274 00:17:23,120 --> 00:17:27,880 protecting that surface, but you can see erosion sometimes in no-till fields because it doesn't 275 00:17:27,880 --> 00:17:32,400 have that soil life there maybe if they're not integrating cover crops into that system. 276 00:17:32,400 --> 00:17:33,400 Absolutely. 277 00:17:33,400 --> 00:17:37,560 And so when we start talking about practices, I think that each of these practices that 278 00:17:37,560 --> 00:17:43,040 we talk about are really, really important, but the synergy of building a system comes 279 00:17:43,040 --> 00:17:45,720 from adding a lot more practices together. 280 00:17:45,720 --> 00:17:50,480 So looking at minimizing that disturbance or taking out disturbance altogether by doing 281 00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:53,820 a no-till practice, we're eliminating disturbance. 282 00:17:53,820 --> 00:17:57,520 So we're not stirring those aggregates every time and we're not breaking them down and 283 00:17:57,520 --> 00:18:01,760 weakening them and taking away soil cover. 284 00:18:01,760 --> 00:18:06,120 We're taking out that disturbance, but we're not adding any plant roots back into that 285 00:18:06,120 --> 00:18:07,120 soil. 286 00:18:07,120 --> 00:18:11,400 And when you start to add things like maybe rotational diversity with different types 287 00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:16,760 of crops out there, but also adding cover crops, when we have more plants out there, 288 00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:23,000 we just are inherently putting more carbon into the soil by having those root exodus 289 00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:26,520 come from the out of the plants roots to feed those microbes. 290 00:18:26,520 --> 00:18:31,540 And if we're feeding those microbes more, then they're able to work for longer times 291 00:18:31,540 --> 00:18:37,360 of the year and do their work, like we said earlier, for coating aggregates or breaking 292 00:18:37,360 --> 00:18:39,800 down residues or other things like that. 293 00:18:39,800 --> 00:18:43,960 They need to have a constant food source and those plant roots are where they get their 294 00:18:43,960 --> 00:18:47,880 primary food source from, is that carbon exuded from those plant roots. 295 00:18:47,880 --> 00:18:52,240 So the more that we can put those plant roots in there, the better off we'll see that system 296 00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:53,240 go. 297 00:18:53,240 --> 00:18:57,840 So individual practices are really, really important, but building that system is where 298 00:18:57,840 --> 00:19:00,720 we start to see that synergy really take off. 299 00:19:00,720 --> 00:19:03,960 Synergy is so key because it doesn't do you any good to know all this unless you can know 300 00:19:03,960 --> 00:19:04,960 what you're looking for. 301 00:19:04,960 --> 00:19:08,400 So you go out, you dig up a spade full of soil. 302 00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:09,800 Obviously you're looking for earthworms. 303 00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:13,120 What else are you looking for that's showing you that you're on the right track here as 304 00:19:13,120 --> 00:19:14,880 far as building that soil life? 305 00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:16,960 The aggregates, I like to look for aggregates. 306 00:19:16,960 --> 00:19:20,420 The other thing that I really like to look for is I like to look for different parts 307 00:19:20,420 --> 00:19:21,560 of soil structures. 308 00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:26,960 So again, that aggregated soil surface, but if we can dig out like a little shovel pit 309 00:19:26,960 --> 00:19:30,360 from our soil, maybe 12 to 12 inches is good. 310 00:19:30,360 --> 00:19:34,120 I was going to say 12 to 15, but let's be honest, if we're sticking a shovel in the 311 00:19:34,120 --> 00:19:36,920 soil, we probably aren't going much deeper than 12 inches. 312 00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:40,880 And if we can dig that out, I like to look for horizontal planes. 313 00:19:40,880 --> 00:19:44,600 So that would be like evidence of compaction layers. 314 00:19:44,600 --> 00:19:51,280 So those horizontal planes in nature, you don't see straight lines in the soil. 315 00:19:51,280 --> 00:19:56,520 Typically soil horizons change and they're kind of wavy horizons or other things like 316 00:19:56,520 --> 00:19:57,520 that. 317 00:19:57,520 --> 00:20:02,160 So if you dig some soil out and you kind of gently bang that shovel on the ground a little 318 00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:07,600 bit to get it to fracture naturally, and you see a paper straight line that's going horizontally, 319 00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:11,880 that indicates to me that that's probably a tillage pass or a compaction layer from 320 00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:15,200 repeated tillage at the same depth over and over and over. 321 00:20:15,200 --> 00:20:17,140 And so that's something that I look for. 322 00:20:17,140 --> 00:20:23,560 We will see that horizontal plane, that historical tillage layer or evidence of tillage, even 323 00:20:23,560 --> 00:20:26,960 years after someone has stopped tilling. 324 00:20:26,960 --> 00:20:32,160 And by years, and I emphasize years, even 10 or 15 years, you can still see that. 325 00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:36,440 But what I like to see, especially in these soil health systems, is if we see that horizontal 326 00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:41,640 fracture, I like to open it up and look at the faces of that horizontal plane. 327 00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:43,260 How many holes do we see in it? 328 00:20:43,260 --> 00:20:44,260 How many earthworm holes? 329 00:20:44,260 --> 00:20:47,600 How many bug holes? 330 00:20:47,600 --> 00:20:48,960 What are the plant roots doing? 331 00:20:48,960 --> 00:20:53,360 Are they growing between that horizontal plane and unable to push down to the next layer 332 00:20:53,360 --> 00:20:54,960 of soil? 333 00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:56,200 Or are they actually pushing through? 334 00:20:56,200 --> 00:21:00,960 Because that indicates to me that is that compaction root restricting or not? 335 00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:05,960 And slowly over time, what I like to see is that our soil life, our insects and our other 336 00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:10,280 organisms and our plant roots are degrading those compaction layers. 337 00:21:10,280 --> 00:21:13,820 Because once we've created them, they don't ever really go away. 338 00:21:13,820 --> 00:21:19,200 But if we can turn it into Swiss cheese, so to say, so all those holes are punching through 339 00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:23,880 there and they aren't restrictive anymore, then that compaction layer is degrading. 340 00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:27,160 And the life in the soil and the plants and the plant roots are doing that. 341 00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:33,440 To switch gears a little bit, today you gave a really nice presentation on looking at life 342 00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:34,560 above that soil. 343 00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:38,320 And people, again, may not make that connection. 344 00:21:38,320 --> 00:21:44,120 It may not be intuitive to them to make the connection to insect life in a field or in 345 00:21:44,120 --> 00:21:48,440 an area where the soil is being built and connection to soil health. 346 00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:51,800 But you made it clear that that's a really important piece. 347 00:21:51,800 --> 00:21:56,980 And one thing that I thought was really striking is you said that often when people use the 348 00:21:56,980 --> 00:22:00,880 word insects, they use pests in the same sentence. 349 00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:02,120 That's not necessarily true. 350 00:22:02,120 --> 00:22:08,880 In fact, it's actually pretty surprising kind of the ratio of beneficial insects to harmful 351 00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:10,440 insects in a field. 352 00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:12,680 And a lot of this is based on a lot of the work. 353 00:22:12,680 --> 00:22:18,040 And I've talked to Jonathan Lundgren about this too, the agroecologist out of South Dakota. 354 00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:19,560 He talks about this a lot. 355 00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:24,800 And I think it's a really important message about the role insects can play in this whole, 356 00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:29,280 not just building soil health, but the regenerative ag, kind of sustainable ag, whatever you want 357 00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:32,840 to call it, ecosystem out there a little bit. 358 00:22:32,840 --> 00:22:34,160 Absolutely. 359 00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:38,880 And having conversations with Jonathan Lundgren is probably the best person to talk to about 360 00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:39,880 these things. 361 00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:44,160 Some of the things that I kind of talked about at this field day today are things that I've 362 00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:45,720 heard Jonathan say. 363 00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:48,400 And I've not heard anybody else say these things. 364 00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:51,080 And I keep thinking, well, somebody else has to say these things. 365 00:22:51,080 --> 00:22:55,160 And so I usually try to say them, but I always make sure to reference appropriately. 366 00:22:55,160 --> 00:22:59,840 This is what Jonathan Lundgren said, because I myself have not done the research that he's 367 00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:03,100 done and the time in the trenches of looking at these things. 368 00:23:03,100 --> 00:23:08,400 But when he says things like, for every one pest that you have out in a field, there's 369 00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:16,920 1,700 beneficial or insects of no consequence to your crop out there, that's mind-boggling. 370 00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:19,960 We spend so much time focused on that one pest, right? 371 00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:23,480 That one pest, whereas there's so many other things out there. 372 00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:30,360 And if we can work to improve or cultivate the more beneficials out there and have more, 373 00:23:30,360 --> 00:23:35,960 even, again, insects that don't cause any negative consequence to the crop, having those 374 00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:40,580 insects out in the field, maybe we can push out the pest. 375 00:23:40,580 --> 00:23:42,560 Maybe there doesn't need to be a space for the pest. 376 00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:48,840 But every time we go out into a field and we treat it on a broad basis with insecticides 377 00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:53,760 or treatments before we've reached economic thresholds, we're not just killing that one 378 00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:58,520 pest, we're killing all of those other beneficials or other insects that live out there. 379 00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:04,720 And what we know is that those pest species, they're pests for many reasons, right? 380 00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:09,580 They like to eat our crop, but they also live in a way that makes them pests. 381 00:24:09,580 --> 00:24:11,220 They reproduce very quickly. 382 00:24:11,220 --> 00:24:13,680 They have multiple generations within the same year. 383 00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:15,480 They have many, many, many young. 384 00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:20,440 And so they can recover quickly from disturbances or other things like that. 385 00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:25,820 Whereas our beneficials are ground beetles and other insects like that that are predators 386 00:24:25,820 --> 00:24:29,360 that eat soft-bodied larva insects that are some of our pests. 387 00:24:29,360 --> 00:24:34,400 Some of those insects, ground beetles, will maybe have five to 10 eggs a year is what 388 00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:35,400 they lay. 389 00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:41,200 And so if we wipe out a population of ground beetles because of a management system, right, 390 00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:46,520 heavy duty tillage, we don't have cover for them, and then we're using, prophylactically 391 00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,960 using insecticides, we're going to wipe out that population. 392 00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:55,000 And it's going to take them years to recover to the levels where they can actually have 393 00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:57,120 an impact on pest populations. 394 00:24:57,120 --> 00:25:01,560 And so it's just really something to think a lot about that every time we go out there 395 00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:05,480 and we do those treatments, it's not just taking care of the pest. 396 00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:07,320 It's eliminating all of those others. 397 00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:09,360 And the first thing to come back is the pest again. 398 00:25:09,360 --> 00:25:15,560 And so in these high, in these systems where we're using a lot of these insecticides prophylactically, 399 00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:18,360 that starts to be the only thing we see out there. 400 00:25:18,360 --> 00:25:20,600 So that's a big concern. 401 00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:22,780 Insects play a huge role. 402 00:25:22,780 --> 00:25:26,940 Some of the insects that we don't think anything about are mites in the soil, these tiny little 403 00:25:26,940 --> 00:25:30,360 red mites in the soil and spiders and other things like that. 404 00:25:30,360 --> 00:25:34,200 Many of them are predators, but the other thing that they do is they're shredders. 405 00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:35,760 So they shred up residue. 406 00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:41,200 So they like to size residue because the smaller the residue pieces are, the more bacteria 407 00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:46,180 gets onto that residue to start to simplify the carbons and decompose that residue. 408 00:25:46,180 --> 00:25:49,720 And then those mites and those spiders, they eat the bacteria. 409 00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:53,620 So they're predators, but they're consuming bacteria. 410 00:25:53,620 --> 00:25:59,480 So this food web is thick with the microbes that we talked about earlier, bacteria and 411 00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:04,860 fungi, but also the insects and the role that they play in breaking down those residues 412 00:26:04,860 --> 00:26:07,440 and then being food for something else. 413 00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:13,400 And that insect diversity and population numbers are something that we need to pay a lot more 414 00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:14,400 attention to. 415 00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:19,500 A lot of our insects need cover and food and a place to live. 416 00:26:19,500 --> 00:26:24,600 And so if we can provide that in our fields and in our systems, we're going to see those 417 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:25,960 populations thrive. 418 00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:31,280 And so when we think about having soil cover here at Jerry's Farm, one of the practices 419 00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:37,520 that he has really worked to get really good at on the operation is interseeding his corn 420 00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:39,720 into some type of a cover crop mix. 421 00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:45,120 And having that cover between the rows of a field along the surface of the soil plays 422 00:26:45,120 --> 00:26:50,120 a huge role in allowing those insects to come in there and thrive and do their work and 423 00:26:50,120 --> 00:26:51,200 other things like that. 424 00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:53,920 So that's really important, that cover. 425 00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:57,160 And then we think about, again, having that cover there. 426 00:26:57,160 --> 00:26:59,660 Sometimes that cover can provide food sources. 427 00:26:59,660 --> 00:27:03,920 Plants like buckwheat have nectar areas on the sides of their plants. 428 00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:08,840 Not only can insects get nectar from the flower of a buckwheat plant, but they can also get 429 00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:11,680 nectar from the leaf tips. 430 00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:13,320 Not the leaf tips, but parts of the plants. 431 00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:18,320 They actually exude out nectar out of those every morning to feed beneficials. 432 00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:22,480 And I think one of the things I mentioned is that the protein content of the pollen 433 00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:27,320 of a buckwheat plant is able to sustain ground beetles when they don't have pests to eat. 434 00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:32,080 And so it's really interesting that a lot of these plants out there in this diversity 435 00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:38,040 allows these ecosystems to thrive so that they can continue to grow and do their thing. 436 00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:42,120 Even if there's not a pest to eat, they can be there so that when a pest shows up, they're 437 00:27:42,120 --> 00:27:43,120 ready. 438 00:27:43,120 --> 00:27:45,480 So that cover plays a big role. 439 00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:48,920 Rotation and crop diversity plays a big role as well because the biggest thing that we've 440 00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:53,680 learned from watching our pests is that they adapt to our rotation. 441 00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:58,400 And so if we have a rotation that's drawn out or long enough or diverse enough, pests 442 00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,000 can never settle into that. 443 00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:06,900 But as long as we have locations along in a farm and an area where different beneficials 444 00:28:06,900 --> 00:28:10,960 can go to, if they're in a field one year and then the next year it plants to a crop 445 00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:14,240 and they're like, well, this doesn't provide me the resources that I need, to be able to 446 00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:18,800 have a location nearby that they can go to that has the resources they need allows that 447 00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:21,240 population just to continue to thrive. 448 00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:25,920 Again, those practices really play together to create that synergy of the system. 449 00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:29,440 And kind of going up the food chain, one of the sponsors of this field day was Pheasants 450 00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:30,440 Forever. 451 00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:31,440 And now I understand why. 452 00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:35,880 Part of it is he's set aside some habitat specifically for wildlife. 453 00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:41,000 But on the rest of his farm, that's working lands conservation, that's a working part 454 00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:42,160 of his farm. 455 00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:47,040 Having those beneficial insects out there, you had talked about, I think, baby pheasants 456 00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:52,520 are, the chicks are obligate to, they need those insects to survive. 457 00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:56,200 And there's so many grassland bird species that are the same way, bluebirds, I mean, 458 00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:57,200 you name it. 459 00:28:57,200 --> 00:28:58,200 Yep. 460 00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:00,440 Baby pheasants, I don't think that's the correct term for them. 461 00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:01,440 What is it? 462 00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:04,200 A brood of pheasants. 463 00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:10,200 That brood is obligate insectivores, which means that they must have insects to live 464 00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:11,480 and survive. 465 00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:16,840 And so if they are in a field that's devoid of insects, there's no habitat there for 466 00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:17,840 them. 467 00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:23,880 And as we look across the upper Midwest, it's unfortunate but true that we don't have a 468 00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:27,600 lot of other habitat besides corn and soybean fields. 469 00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:28,800 And we're working really hard. 470 00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:33,600 There's many people out there that are doing a great job to build up and restore that habitat. 471 00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:37,880 But we need to stop thinking about corn and soybeans as a location of a non-habitat, right? 472 00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:41,920 We need to think about those as how can we create habitat in those areas and having that 473 00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:46,360 cover out there, increasing those insect populations so those birds can go through there and be 474 00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:49,680 protected from predators, from having extra cover in them. 475 00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:55,040 But then also having a food source that's readily available for those young chicks as 476 00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:57,180 they're growing and developing. 477 00:29:57,180 --> 00:30:01,960 It makes a big difference on the strength of that bird population. 478 00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:08,680 And I think if you talk to Jerry later, he'll talk about just what he sees in his farm. 479 00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:13,920 And who knows if someone went out and measured it, if they'd say, well, we don't see a difference 480 00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:18,960 if we measure fields or whatever, but we know that there's a difference time and time again. 481 00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:23,200 We see more and more birds in fields where there's greater cover out there. 482 00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:25,280 Speaking of measurement, you've been busy. 483 00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:27,160 You did some trapping here. 484 00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:28,160 Yes. 485 00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:32,120 So you described, first of all, the system you used to trap and what you found. 486 00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:34,620 It was kind of the proof is in the pudding a little bit. 487 00:30:34,620 --> 00:30:35,800 This isn't just theoretical. 488 00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:38,360 You did observe some interesting trends there. 489 00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:39,360 Yes. 490 00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:41,520 So what I did is I set up some pitfall traps. 491 00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:47,780 I did not follow any type of like, I didn't set them up in some type of scientific rigor 492 00:30:47,780 --> 00:30:48,780 or anything like that. 493 00:30:48,780 --> 00:30:50,840 So it wasn't like a research-based project. 494 00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:55,680 But often what I find, especially when you're working with farmers and the general public, 495 00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:59,360 is that no one's really interested in doing a big research project. 496 00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:05,320 But if we can anecdotally show by having some rigor about where we establish things and 497 00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:11,320 what we're looking at, that we can show with anecdotal evidence that these things are changing. 498 00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:13,200 And that's what farmers want to hear about. 499 00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:15,360 That's what the general public wants to know. 500 00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:17,800 Are these practices making changes? 501 00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:19,320 And yes, they are. 502 00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:22,660 So what we did at Jerry's farm here today is we set up the pitfall traps. 503 00:31:22,660 --> 00:31:25,080 And we had three different management systems. 504 00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:27,140 So first we were in the CRP. 505 00:31:27,140 --> 00:31:30,780 And then we were in Jerry's cornfield that has the interseeded cover crops. 506 00:31:30,780 --> 00:31:33,560 And then the last field was just a conventional cornfield. 507 00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,920 So no cover crops and full-width tillage. 508 00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:38,480 So those were the three systems. 509 00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:42,480 And then at each location, I installed two pitfall traps. 510 00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:43,480 So not just one trap. 511 00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:44,920 I did two in each location. 512 00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:47,520 I did combine them at the end when I collected them. 513 00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,600 But I did do two pitfall traps. 514 00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:52,320 And to explain, this is real simple. 515 00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:56,440 You did use red solo cups and buried them up to their mouth there. 516 00:31:56,440 --> 00:32:00,760 And so you don't have to get anything high-tech equipment to do something like this. 517 00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:01,760 No, no. 518 00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:03,240 It was super low-tech. 519 00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:08,480 And if you Google pitfall traps, I'm sure you could find an example of somebody installing 520 00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:09,800 a pitfall trap. 521 00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:14,200 If you get really interested in to do this, the best tool to have, and I don't have one, 522 00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:17,700 but I think I need to get one, is a golf hole cutter. 523 00:32:17,700 --> 00:32:20,040 Because it's the perfect size for making the hole. 524 00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:22,200 And then the solo cup can fit right into that. 525 00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:26,280 So usually I like to do, when I set those solo cups or red solo cups in the garden, 526 00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:31,760 I like to do two cups and get it in there so that you can do repeated sampling over 527 00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:32,760 time. 528 00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:36,000 So you can take the one solo cup out, put a new one in, and then you have a cup with 529 00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:37,960 what you've collected and put a date on it. 530 00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:41,640 But what we did on these three fields is we installed the solo cups and we did that on 531 00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:43,040 Monday afternoon. 532 00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:45,080 And then this morning I collected them. 533 00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:47,600 And so this morning is, this is Wednesday. 534 00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:48,600 Yes. 535 00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:50,200 So 36 hours or something like that. 536 00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:51,280 Yeah, that's what I was thinking. 537 00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,100 About a day and a half or something like that they were in there. 538 00:32:54,100 --> 00:33:00,200 And then I just combined, I took the two samples from each treatment and I put them in a Tupperware 539 00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:02,520 container and then we looked at them. 540 00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:06,720 And what we saw is that in our conventional system, we had some insects out there. 541 00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:12,280 We had some ground beetles and a couple crickets and maybe a spider or something like that. 542 00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:17,640 But when we compare that to Jerry's field, which I called the soil health system, the 543 00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:23,740 numbers were dramatically greater, like statistically greater, I would say, if we did some research 544 00:33:23,740 --> 00:33:27,720 on it, but much, much greater in terms of what was out there in terms of numbers. 545 00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:32,600 So a lot of ground beetles, like the first one, the conventionally tilled field, I think 546 00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:34,160 it was maybe five or six. 547 00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:37,640 And then into the soil health system, we are probably close to 20 beetles. 548 00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:39,240 But then we also saw some other things there too. 549 00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:40,760 We saw crickets just like the other one. 550 00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:46,800 But the other thing that I saw in Jerry's field was I saw a lot of roly-polies or isopods. 551 00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:48,680 So those are decomposers. 552 00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:53,400 And so they play a really important role in helping to shred residues and decompose them 553 00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:57,340 and simplify those carbons and other nutrients to make them plant available. 554 00:33:57,340 --> 00:33:59,680 So I saw roly-polies and a few other things. 555 00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:03,340 I'm not good at identifying them beyond what I can actually see. 556 00:34:03,340 --> 00:34:08,680 And then in the CRP, the amount of diversity was even greater in that field. 557 00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:10,700 So we saw some ground beetles. 558 00:34:10,700 --> 00:34:13,440 We actually saw some carabid beetles as well. 559 00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,560 So they are the beautiful iridescent green color. 560 00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:18,960 Carabid beetles, along with the other ground beetles as well. 561 00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:23,320 But they're known for consuming slugs and other soft bodied insects. 562 00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:25,100 So they're great predators. 563 00:34:25,100 --> 00:34:29,240 Even their larvae that live in the soil are predators of slugs and other insects. 564 00:34:29,240 --> 00:34:32,120 And others, well I suppose a slug isn't an insect. 565 00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:34,720 Slugs and insects that are soft bodied. 566 00:34:34,720 --> 00:34:35,720 Soil critters. 567 00:34:35,720 --> 00:34:36,720 Yes, there we go. 568 00:34:36,720 --> 00:34:39,560 So we saw some carabid beetles like that. 569 00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:43,840 I also saw a parasitic wasp in the CRP. 570 00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:46,720 I saw a couple different types of spiders. 571 00:34:46,720 --> 00:34:48,040 There was a centipede. 572 00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:53,720 There's just a lot more diversity that you saw in that pitfall trap. 573 00:34:53,720 --> 00:34:59,640 And so as we, what's the word that I want to, as you simplify the system, you lose diversity. 574 00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:01,560 And you lose numbers as well. 575 00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:05,400 And so that's one of the things that we were able to just even visually assess by looking 576 00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:09,200 at those is that there was quite a bit of difference between those three sites. 577 00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:13,720 Time and time again we hear farmers talk about the benefits that their system, their synergistic 578 00:35:13,720 --> 00:35:16,760 system has provided them or allowed them to be able to do. 579 00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:23,360 Whether that's taking off seed treatments, not spraying an herbicide pass in the second 580 00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:28,440 half of the season, not spraying for aphids, not doing those things like that. 581 00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:31,560 Those things add up to these farmers. 582 00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:36,680 As we think about the farming population as a whole, are we able to, have we yet gotten 583 00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:38,960 every farmer to think about this in that same way? 584 00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:40,200 And we haven't. 585 00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:42,600 And we just got to keep working on doing that. 586 00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:49,280 I will say when you had kind of laid out what you had collected from each land use and showed 587 00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:53,560 how the difference in insect populations, the farmers were really interested, Jerry 588 00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:54,560 was very interested. 589 00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:57,000 He's very, you could tell this is something he's proud of maybe. 590 00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:03,340 And so I think that's an important starting point for folks to say, oh yeah, this is something 591 00:36:03,340 --> 00:36:05,380 that I can have an impact on. 592 00:36:05,380 --> 00:36:06,700 It's a little bit like soil health. 593 00:36:06,700 --> 00:36:10,520 This is something I can have an impact on on my own piece of ground. 594 00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:13,280 I've worked for NRCS for about 20 years now. 595 00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:15,760 It always tends, there always seems to be something. 596 00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:21,080 What's the next shiny thing that agriculture is working towards or other things like that? 597 00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:28,080 I hope and what I see is that soil health starts to become not just some movement or 598 00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:33,860 some shiny button, but a mainstay in viable production agriculture systems. 599 00:36:33,860 --> 00:36:37,960 So that we're not just talking about it as like, oh well, that's the soil health system 600 00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:39,640 and this is how everybody else farms. 601 00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:44,000 But my hope is that someday when we talk about conventional agriculture, conventional agriculture 602 00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:48,440 means no till and cover crops and crop rotation and those things like that. 603 00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:49,440 That's what I hope. 604 00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:53,800 I think the reason why it sticks around so much is because it's focused on life. 605 00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:57,840 I've always heard Gabe Brown say, before he started doing the things he was doing on his 606 00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:02,880 operation and diversifying and getting into soil health, he got up every day and it was 607 00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:05,840 like, what do I kill today? 608 00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:10,760 And that's kind of what agriculture is focused on is that we kill everything else except 609 00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:12,600 for the one plant that we got there. 610 00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:16,440 And these farmers that start to get into soil health, they start to realize, well, it's 611 00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:20,640 not about death, it's about life and it's about building this ecosystem and that soil 612 00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:25,200 is alive and it's not just a medium that we top in some chemistry to and then watch a 613 00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:30,960 plant grow and harvest it, that this whole system is built on a living ecosystem. 614 00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:35,160 And those farmers get really excited when they start to realize that they're part of 615 00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:36,160 this life. 616 00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:40,320 They're part of building that life, but they're also part of benefiting from that life of 617 00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:48,000 harvesting higher protein grain or regeneratively sourced grains that have higher nutrient content 618 00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:49,280 or nutrient density in them. 619 00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:53,080 So I think that as a movement, I don't think it's going anywhere. 620 00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:59,360 I think that, and it should be here to stay, as we talk about this as systems in agriculture, 621 00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:04,240 that we should be focusing on trying to build everyone into a regenerative, resilient system 622 00:38:04,240 --> 00:38:09,380 because we're going to need a more and more resilient agriculture to continue to successfully 623 00:38:09,380 --> 00:38:22,160 farm in the 21st century. 624 00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:27,880 In Ear to the Ground episode 351, I interviewed Jerry Ackerman about how his use of no-till 625 00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:31,920 and cover cropping systems has helped bring his farm back to life. 626 00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:36,520 To listen to that podcast and for more on building soil health profitably, see the podcast 627 00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:42,080 page for Ear to the Ground episode 352 at landstewardshipproject.org. 628 00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:46,640 If you have comments or suggestions about this podcast, contact Brian DeVore at bdevor 629 00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:53,160 at landstewardshipproject.org or you can call 612-816-9342. 630 00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:57,280 By the way, it helps us greatly if you can give Ear to the Ground a rating on whatever 631 00:38:57,280 --> 00:38:59,480 podcast platform you utilize. 632 00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:02,640 And word of mouth is the best way to spread the news about our podcast. 633 00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:08,080 If you like what you hear, tell at least one person about LSP's Ear to the Ground. 634 00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:12,680 Thanks to Laura Borgendahl, a Western Minnesota musician, for Ear to the Ground's theme music. 635 00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:17,260 And a special thank you to all of Land Stewardship Project's members who make initiatives such 636 00:39:17,260 --> 00:39:19,300 as this podcast possible. 637 00:39:19,300 --> 00:39:25,960 If you're not a member, visit landstewardshipproject.org to learn how you can support LSP. 638 00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:34,520 Thanks for listening.