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Grant, can you talk about maybe how should I build it on my farm
How should I test it?
-What can I do? -Right
Well the nice thing to remember about this
or the important thing to remember about this is this is a living system.
And so we're really trying to test various things that are going to work
with not only our soil properties, but the microbial community that we've got
in our particular soil.
The kinds of water quality, the kinds of crops that we're growing,
and things like that all work together in this living system,
so no two systems are ever really alike.
And so what we want to make sure to do is we want to start as best we can
with a good target, a baseline of some sort,
to go from so that we can measure from that relative
to all of the things that are working in that particular location.
So of course, we would want to go out and take initial soil samples
with a sample probe, a shovel, or what have you.
And we're really looking at the activity in the upper reaches of the root zone
because that's where all of that microbial activity
and the cycling of the organic matter and other things
are going to really, really be taking place.
So we're looking at two to six inches
typically is where most of that action will take place.
If we're sampling deeper, of course, we'll get to know what the properties
are below that, but they may not be as readily affected
by what our management is down deeper.
And we may miss what's happening, the important things that are happening
in the surface.
So we want to start with a good baseline.
And we would probably take a look at some of the basic soil tests
that are available to us that are cheaper
maybe than some of these that you've discussed earlier
that can target particular aspects of soil health.
Things like the the solidity level in the soil,
which is an easy measurement to take at any soil testing laboratory.
Organic matter content is one that was regularly done at most laboratories.
Aggregate stability, which is more readily available
at different laboratories as well.
We may want to take a look at just a few of those
as a baseline to then be able to measure against over time.
The other thing like I said is to remember because it's a living system,
-it doesn't happen all at once. -[Matt] Hmmm
So we want to try to experiment with some of these different practices
that are available to us.
We'll want to maybe look at different crop rotations
or residue management, minimum tillage or something
in a location or what not.
And rather than just blanket treating all of your land at one time
with a particular practice is to take smaller areas
and experiment just a little bit with a crop rotation
that's recommended for your region
or an erosion control practice, or a residue management practice,
a minimum tillage practice or something like that
and see if it works.
And take care of kind of the tweaking for your specific environment
in that particular location.
Once you get a feel for how it works and that it's functioning well,
you can begin to expand that into the rest of your land base
with something that you know you is going to get some kind of
beneficial performance back.
And then of course monitoring for improvements over time
we would want to accomplish with additional soil sampling.
But because this is a slow developing process, we're really coaxing
a living system into a better condition.
Two or three years down the road of using a particular practice,
then you'll want to go back in and take additional samples
and look at increases in organic matter,
increases in aggregate stability, and those kinds of things
that are going to give you then way points along the way
for development of improved soil health.
If you want to know more about all of this
we've just kind of skimmed the surface
with a lot of the different things that are available to us
and kind of the procedure for this.
We have a new fact sheet out at Utah State University Extension
on soil health facts.
It kind of covers this more in detail and then give you additional links
to places like USDA soil health division website
which has a lot of information there on cover crop practices
and tillage management practices, and those kinds of things
that are proven to connect with soil health and what have you.
We also have a social media site,
Matt, why don't you tell them about that a little bit.
Ya so recently we started a new Facebook page
called USU Extension Crops.
The handle is @UtahCrops.
Connected with that Facebook account, we also have an Instagram account
and a Twitter account.
Those are the handles for those are @USUCrops
and on those social media platforms we've kind of highlighted
some of these soil health findings, soil health facts,
and lots of other things dealing with crop production.
So we invite you to check those out.