5 easy steps to improving soil health from cover crops diversity
The challenges to establishing a healthier and diverse soil environment can be overcome by breaking the big picture into small, manageable, bite-size steps.
- Set realistic goals.
Farmers wanting to begin their soil health journey need to start with measuring the current soil health to create a benchmark. A soil health assessment can determine the most valuable factors to create the biggest impact on an operation. From there, you can set your goals for improvement. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Setting SMART goals can help you monitor your progress.
- Keep soil covered.
Often, when soils are bare and the environment receives rain or winds, greater erosion is likely to occur. Soil conservation practices, such as no-till management, has become more common in recent years. In a no-till system, a minimum amount of soil disturbance is maintained with maximum soil cover from past crop residue.
Adding a cover crop to a no-till system can greatly enhance the positive effects. In the Midwest, bare soils can be beneficial for early spring germination by warming the soils quicker. During an extended period of higher heat, bare soils can reach 140 degrees, which is hot enough to kill several soil organisms and create a negative effect of stress on a cash crops, while adding to excessive soil moisture evaporation. Adding to the benefits of past residue from the previous year’s cash crop, a cover stubble will help protect and shade the soil from the sun and capture and retain more rain during heavy down pours.
- Minimize soil disturbance.
Leaving crop residue intact is a crucial step in the soil health journey. Tillage should not be completely removed from a cropping system. There are times when soils will need to be leveled, creating a smooth seedbed. Several soil types require additional assistance to break up soil compaction and hard pans placed by heavy axle loads. In-line ripping will reach under compaction layers to shatter root barriers, leaving a minimal amount of surface soil disturbance.
Several companies offer tools to level and smooth these acres prior to planting. These tools are referred to as vertical tillage equipment, designed to level and smooth while not reestablishing soil hard pans. Soils will be maintained with no defined areas of different soil densities that will impair roots from exploring soil to capture key growing nutrients.
- Keep living roots in soil throughout the year.
The benefits of building a healthy soil environment with living roots is like a healthy cattle rumen. The rumen is home to a diverse number of bacteria that break down plant matter and provide energy for the cow. Bacteria fed forages high in sugar, cellulose and starches will turn plant matter into meat and milk. Likewise, a healthy soil environment is home to an incredible diversity of bacteria, fungi, arthropods, and earthworms, creating a hidden food web in the soil.
This diverse population of soil organisms is maintained with the presence of living roots. The root exudates are food sources for all the bacteria and fungi. They contain sugars, amino acids, organic acids and phenols. Soil organisms are attracted to these substances and cycle the nutrients, which creates a symbiotic exchange of products between bacteria and crop roots. Soil fungi and bacteria consume the carbohydrates that plants exude from roots, giving nutrients such as nitrogen or phosphorus back to the crop.
Cover crops are key ingredients to the entire soil food web acting as a relay between the cash crops grown on the soils. Green cover crops capture sunlight and carbon dioxide to make carbon-based molecules. The process builds up the carbon in the soil. This carbon cycling in the soil will become a humic substance, gradually building soil organic matter. Soil organic matter acts as the soil’s safe, securely storing copious amounts of nutrients and moisture for crops to utilize during the growing season.
- Diversify crop rotations and cover crop mixes!
Diverse planting mixes, coupled with longer existence of growing roots in the soil, will increase soil biodiversity. Growing mixes of cover crops or adding several distinct species to a crop rotation (such as winter cereals before soybeans, and oats, radishes, or clovers before corn) improves diversity.
To reap the benefits of annuals in a diverse range of cover crops, a minimum of 45 days with adequate growing conditions is needed for these species to establish themselves in the soils. This window of growth needs to occur prior to killing freezes in the fall, ending the growing season for all annual species. A cover crop can scavenge the soil profile for leftover nutrients and hold manure nutrient applications until the cover crop is terminated for the next cropping season.
Understanding your SMART goals is the pathway to success. Incorporating proven practices while introducing changes will propel your soils to maximize nutrient investments, creating a sound and sustainable livestock enterprise.
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Crop varieties Forage Foundations Soil health |