Farming For Healthier Soil Changes & Challenges

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1 RODALE INSTITUTE Farming For Healthier Soil Changes & Challenges By Jeff Moyer Executive Director

2 Healthy Soil = Healthy Food = Healthy People Written on a blackboard in 1942 J.I. Rodale Robert Rodale

3 Soil Health Depends on Management It s About the SOIL! To be a successful farmer one must first know the nature of the soil. Xenophon, Oeconomicus, 400 B.C.

4 Hippocrates 460 to 370 BC A physician should know something about the soil where a patient s food comes from

5 US Erosion in the Gulf of Mexico 2008 Soil From Iowa in the Gulf of Mexico Over 2 million acres lost 20 tons or more of top soil

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7 Our Broken Food System When Only Yields Are Considered

8 Same Resources Different Philosophy Farming is part of the problem Farming is part of the solution

9 Farming Systems Trial (FST) All Treatments Include Till and No-Till Organic-manure based Cash crops: Oat - Soybean - Wheat Corn Silage - Hay Cover crops: Rye or Hairy Vech Amendments: Compost Organic-legume based Cash crops: Corn Oats - Barley - Soybean - Wheat Cover crops: Rye Clover Hairy Vetch Amendments: none Conventional-chemically based Cash crops: Corn Corn Soybean Wheat Cover crops : Rye or Hairy Vetch Amendments: Synthetic

10 Same Soil; Different Health organic conventional organic conventional Soils of the organic systems have a more active soil biological community higher levels of glomalin (a glycoprotein that acts like glue, binding organic matter to mineral particles), greater populations of mycorrhizae (a fungus that forms a symbiotic relationship with its host plant: the fungus receives carbohydrates from the plant, which in return gains access to water and nutrients). This leads to improved soil structure and enhanced carbon sequestration.

11 Agroecosystem Resilience (2016) Organic Corn Conventional Corn Phosphate and Nitrate Stress

12 Water Use Efficiency Water holding capacity improves as soil organic matter increases Conventional Organic.

13 20 inches 50 mm 10 inches 25 mm The Carbon Problem M C FST - Growing topsoil in decades rather than centuries.

14 Agro-ecosytem Resilience Preliminary yield data from 2016

15 Overall comparison Comparison of FST organic and conventional systems 4,568 4,079 4,022 3,264 Organic Conv 1, Yields (lbs/a/yr) Profit ($/a/yr) Energy Input (MJ/a/yr) Greenhouse gases (lbs CO2/a/yr) Yields = grain and forage yields combined

16 New Boss

17 The Vegetable Systems Trial A long-term, side-by-side comparison of organic and (VST) conventional vegetable crop systems. Collecting baseline soil data Dr. Andrew Smith (left), VST Director, taking deep soil cores with Rick Carr (right), Compost Specialist. 144 cores were taken from 48 plots. Beginning this fall, soil health measurements will be taken at different depths. Systems within the VST: Conventional Plasticulture Conventional Reduced Till Organic Plasticulture Organic Reduced Till Dr. Emmanuel Omondi, FST Director, Tara Caton (center), Research Technician, and Emily Lesher (right), Research Intern, assisting with soil measurements in VST. Collection of baseline data included preservation of DNA in the field and long-term storage to track microbial communities over time and between systems using next generation DNA sequencing technologies.

18 A Different Way of Farming; Organic No-Till

19 2013 Corn into Hairy Vetch

20 Integrated Crops/Livestock Animals Belong On Farms Not In Fee Managed Pastures Yielded 2.5 Times More Above Ground Biomass Not in Feed Lots

21 Pastured hog production Using Hogs to improve soil health

22 How We Produce Food Does Make A Difference

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24 Rodale Institute You can make a difference Support organic farming and fight climate change! Thank You! Jeff.moyer@rodaleinstitute.org