Healthy Soil Structure – The House of Life

By Justin Morris

Could you ever live in a house that collapsed on itself? Probably not. To begin living there, we would have to rebuild the house by adding more space between the walls, ceiling, and floor. By the same token, soil life cannot live in soils that have collapsed where there is no place for them to live. They need enough space provided by good soil structure to live and grow. And because healthy soil structure is so important to creating resiliency to droughts and floods, as well as providing nutrients for growing our food, healthy soil structure is the house of life! 

What is Soil Structure? 

Soil structure is the arrangement of individual soil particles and the space between them. Soil microorganisms fed by sugars released by plant roots group soil particles together into larger units called aggregates. Soil structure can vary from granular where there is a lot of space between aggregates (think cottage cheese or a fluffy chocolate cake; see Photo 1) to being very tight and compact where there is very little to no space between soil particles and no aggregates are visible (see Photo 2).   

Why is soil structure so important? 

Photo 1: Healthy soil has a granular or crumbly structure. Photo: USDA-NRCS

Agriculture is the conversion of solar energy into harvestable, life-giving energy. Solar energy is captured by plants, which release that energy in the form of biochemical compounds to soil life. Soil life produces glue-like compounds that enable sand, silt, and clay particles to rearrange while also bringing nutrients to plant roots. As soil particles rearrange during the aggregation process, cavities called pores are created. Pores allow soil to infiltrate and hold water that’s essential for plants and soil life. Pores also allow air to get into the soil so soil life and roots can breathe while allowing carbon dioxide to be released from the soil. Carbon dioxide rising out of the soil is captured by plants so photosynthesis can continue. Life on earth is dependent on a healthy soil with a granular or crumbly structure that promotes the capture and release of water and

Photo 2: Unhealthy soil with no visible aggregates. Photo: USDA-NRCS

promotes the exchange of gases. In short, a granular soil structure allows soil life and plants to drink and breathe.  

Think of soil structure like a house. The wood, concrete, and steel that make up the foundation, floor, walls, and ceiling are like sand, silt, and clay particles. The nails, screws, and staples are like the glue-like compounds secreted by plant roots and soil life. With nails, screws, and staples in place, the house has lots of room to live inside. But if a large earthmover moves through the house, the house collapses and the livable room inside the house is eliminated. Similarly, when tillage or another disturbance happens too frequently, the soil structure collapses on itself. Collapsed soil structure diminishes the habitat soil life needed to obtain nutrients for plants and to facilitate water infiltration and air movement.  

What are the key practices that can improve soil structure? 

Practices that can facilitate improved soil structure include the following: 

  1. Reduced tillage, strip tillage, or no-till 
  2. Three or more crops in rotation from three different plant families 
  3. Cover crop mixtures with at least eight plant species and three plant families
  4. Grazing perennial pastures that focuses on: 1) adequate leaf area post-grazing; and 2) full plant recovery pre-grazing 
  5. Grazing cover crop mixtures on cropland where possible 
  6. Mulching 
  7. Controlled traffic farming 
  8. Converting annual cropland to perennial mixtures 

Photo 3: Nine species cover crop mixture. Photo: USDA-NRCS

Healthy soil structure is the house of life. As we focus on improving the life in our soils, that same soil life can begin creating healthy soil structure with plenty of space within and between soil aggregates. This can give us healthy food plus resilience to droughts and floods. That sounds like a win-win-win!

 

Related ATTRA Resources 

Building Healthy Pasture Soils – ATTRA – Sustainable Agriculture (ncat.org)

A Tale of Two Pastures: Pasture Response to Catastrophic Events – ATTRA – Sustainable Agriculture (ncat.org)

Soil – ATTRA – Sustainable Agriculture (ncat.org)

Grazing – ATTRA – Sustainable Agriculture (ncat.org)

This publication is produced by the National Center for Appropriate Technology through the ATTRA Sustainable Agriculture program, under a cooperative agreement with USDA Rural Development. ATTRA.NCAT.ORG. 

Weaning Pasture Soils Off Chemical Dependence

By Lee Rinehart, NCAT Agriculture Specialist

I recently received an email from a farmer in New England. They have put a lot of effort into their beef farm to bring their soil to life after decades of conventional corn and hay production with substantial chemical inputs. They have been working to improve the health of their pasture soils by overseeding with clover and rotationally grazing and have begun a regime of applying organic amendments to help stimulate microbial activity. In their words, they are “weaning their soils off chemical dependance,” even if at times they feel like they are “shooting in the dark.”

I feel that way a lot. Shooting in the dark. Many of my consultations with farmers and graziers over the years have taken on this quality. But really, what is happening is we are having a conversation about a complex living ecosystem that we barely understand. What I have learned is that good grazing comes from experience. And experience is informed by observation and science.

For this most recent conversation, we started off with the idea of kick starting the soil biological community. The single most beneficial way to do this is to increase soil organic matter. After all, it is what soil bacteria eat. This is the best way to build aggregate stability and lower soil bulk density. It turns the soil from a brick to a sponge. A good way to do this inexpensively is bale grazing with livestock in high density for a short period of time, somewhere above 100,000 pounds of live weight per acre (this is highly variable). Bale grazing is an excellent way to build soil over time and is especially useful on pastures in the dormant season or for renovating poor performing fields during the grazing season. An intentional, planned disturbance of short duration with a long rest period for full plant recovery disturbs the soil surface with hoof action, pushes plant residue close to the soil surface for rapid decomposition, and distributes manure and microorganisms from the animals’ saliva and haircoat. Think of it as biological priming for soils.

Sometimes a grazier will ask about planting improved species. After all, when they look across their fields they see a scattering of annual forbs, perhaps the resilient stalks of perennial weeds, and short, closely cropped perennial grasses holding on for dear life. It makes sense, though, to think about planting better grasses. The logic is sound. But I have learned that this seldom works and can be extremely expensive. For success, it just about means farming the field… some kind of tillage, weed control, fertilizer, and water. And it takes time. A grazier can drain their savings account in one season farming this way. Farming is risky enough without adding to our debt load.

Then I learned how many seeds are just sitting in the soil, waiting for the opportune time to emerge. Sure, there are lots of weed seeds. These are often the first to emerge and they do this for a reason. The annuals come up and provide soil cover, a band aid, the first step in healing damaged soil. But this is the time to use animal impact and see if we can release the native seedbank and get the good stuff to emerge.

For the beneficial grass and forb seeds to germinate and grow, we need disturbance. But I don’t mean tillage, I mean the kind of disturbance I described above. Getting organic matter into the soil will help to increase water infiltration, it will make mycorrhizal fungi and bacterial populations explode in numbers. It will create aeration, little passages in the soil for air and water to pass through.

I was talking to Allen Williams a few weeks ago, and he mentioned something that made me think. These little channels, caused by soil aggregation, earthworms, and dung beetles, provide a passage for deeply buried seeds to travel up closer to the soil surface where they can germinate. Think about it… when water infiltrates, the seeds that are buried deep in the soil profile have a route to float up and get within the germination zone. Perhaps this explains what I have seen after a few years of grazing with thoughtful disturbances – fields that become highly diverse and productive with plants I didn’t even know were present in the seedbank.

So that’s one way to establish a better forage stand. Another approach that graziers have been using for years is frost seeding. Remember, frost seeding is when we broadcast a small seeded species in the late winter when the soil is undergoing a sequence of freezing at night and thawing in the day. This action serves to pulse the soil surface ever so slightly to help cover small seeds with soil over the course of a few days or weeks, allowing them to germinate when the temperature gets to around 60°F. Red clover works well for this, as does white clover and many other small seeded legumes. Grass seeds are larger and, because of this, frost seeding is seldom recommended for establishing grass stands, though I know people who have tried it. If you are making your frost seed decision late, you can perhaps mimic the freeze-thaw action by turning livestock into the pasture after broadcasting seed and let them trample it in.

Some other things came to mind as I was talking to this grazier, logistical things to help ensure their animals could provide the impact they needed them to perform when they needed it. One was to ensure their watering systems are portable to give more control of paddock use. It is much easier to time the grazing and rest periods of paddocks when water access is not an issue. Another is to use polybraid and step-in posts to strategically enclose paddocks and try to match herd weight (the herd dry matter intake requirement) with the forage available. As a rule, I have adapted the old adage “take half leave half” to “take half trample half.” The ATTRA publication Paddock Design, Fencing, Water Systems, and Livestock Movement Strategies for Multi-Paddock Grazing goes into detail on water and fencing, so I’ll direct you there if you’d like more on these and other logistical concerns.

Finally, make grazing decisions based on observation of impact on previous fields and the needs of the current field based on goals (animal productivity, weed pressure, renovation, need for incorporating organic matter, going on vacation, etc.). And try not to re-graze a field until the plants have fully recovered. This is the cardinal rule in grazing. And never do the same thing on a paddock season after season and year after year. Nature is fickle and changes things up regularly. Mimicking nature in this way opens the opportunity for various things to happen, from new forages appearing in the fields to providing wildlife habitat for ground-nesting birds. Change it up, observe what happens, and try to capitalize on nature’s methods.

Getting off chemical dependance, and in this case synthetic fertilizer, is achievable in pasture systems. Instead of ammonium nitrate, we rely on nitrogen from mineralization and legumes. Soil aggregation is key. After the soil has begun to wake up and nutrient cycling is running at optimum, you can start the weaning process. I like to recommend Christine Jones’s regime for doing this: 20% reduction in the first year, followed by two years of additional 30% reduction, culminating with two years of minimal applications of about 4.5 pounds per acre to jump-start the grazing season. Many have gone cold turkey and it has worked. But those graziers have been doing regenerative soil management for decades. My advice is to add organic matter, build aggregation, and go off fertilizer slowly.

Related NCAT Resources:

Toolkit: How to Reduce Synthetic Fertilizer Use

Adaptive Grazing – You Can Do It

Managed Grazing Tutorial

No-Till Farmer

Other Resources:

The Soil for Water Forum

Healing Battered Fields, Pastures with Adaptive Grazing

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Residue Testing for Chemicals in Agricultural Soil

Lee Rinehart, NCAT Agriculture Specialist

Each year, a half million tons of pesticides are applied to U.S. farmland to produce crops (U.S. Geological Survey). Because of persistent pesticide use, much of our soils, as well as some of the crops and food products produced, are contaminated with chemical residues (NSW Department of Primary Industries). Additionally, land can become contaminated by heavy metals from agricultural chemicals and fertilizers, biosolids, wastewater, metal mining, and and milling, or by airborne sources (stack or duct emissions) (Wuana and Okieimen). Other sources of pollution include landfills and waste disposal sites, highways and parking lots, and construction sites. Residues and metals from industrial sites can remain in the soil at high levels well after the industrial activity has ceased. And it can be difficult to obtain actual numbers of all contaminated sites in the United States because a monitoring system of all polluted sites in in this country does not exist (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations).

Soil testing on suspect sites is the best method for determining if soil is safe for food production or human and other animal habitation. Soil residue tests can determine if residues are present to help farmers and gardeners assess their risk, manage exposure, and remediate contaminated sites. The importance of soil testing on suspect sites cannot be over-stated, since approximately 59% of the American population lives within three miles of a contaminated site (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations).

Below are some useful resources for getting soil tested for specific pesticides or heavy metals. However, the first place to check is your local land-grant university. Your state Cooperative Extension will have information on whether university chemical and heavy metal testing labs exist in your state.

Labs Providing Contaminated Soil Testing Services

Cooperative Extension Testing Labs. Find your state and contact your local Extension office for more information on labs in your area.

Heavy Metals Analysis, Ward Laboratories

Heavy Metals Testing, Cornell Soil Health Laboratory

Soil Health Testing

Though not directly related to chemical testing, soil health testing can help farmers and gardeners obtain baseline data from which to set goals for soil improvement. Soil health practices such as the addition of organic matter (i.e., clean compost) to soils, maintaining a pH of 6.5 or higher, and mulching or planting cover crops can help mitigate exposure from contaminated soils. The labs listed below provide soil-health testing that goes beyond nutrient and pH analysis by assessing the soil’s biological functions, which are indicators of soil health and the soil’s ability to immobilize chemical compounds.

Cornell Soil Health

Regen Ag Lab

Ward Laboratories

Woods End Lab

Useful Resources for Understanding Soil Contamination

Soil Contaminants, Soil Science Society of America

Soil Testing for Environmental Contaminants – Interpreting Your Heavy Metals Test Results, University of New Hampshire

Urban Agriculture Soil Contaminants and Soil Testing, University of California

Bioassay for Pesticide Residue – A Home Test

Chemical residues can negatively affect plant growth and may lead to chemical exposure to humans and other animals that encounter the soil or food produced on contaminated soil. A bioassay is a quick and easy way to determine if chemical residues (insecticides and herbicides) are in a soil, and to test if the soil can be safely planted to a crop. This is accomplished by planting a susceptible plant in the soil to be tested to observe how the plant germinates and grows in the suspect soil. Depending on the chemical present, the test plants will manifest specific symptoms such as leaf curling, stunted growth, or discoloration (North Carolina State Extension). For more information on conducting a bioassay, see the resources below.

Conducting a Bioassay For Herbicide Residues, North Carolina State Extension

Check your soil for herbicide residue, Grainews

What Can I Do to Prevent Exposure to Potential Contaminants in My Soil?

First, get the soil tested. Find out about the history of the field, lawn, or site. Was it previously farmed conventionally using chemicals? Did the prior owner or user use chemicals or store potentially contaminated substances on the land? Was the site used for manufacturing? Then, depending on the test results and the severity of contamination, there are some practices you can do to help prevent exposure (Cornell Cooperative Extension):

  • Use clean soil and compost
  • Use raised beds
  • Avoid treated wood (railroad ties and pressure-treated wood)
  • Maintain healthy soil and neutral pH
  • Use cover crops and/or mulch to reduce soil splash and dust
  • Monitor children, pets, and livestock
  • Clean farm and garden tools and implements after use
  • Wash your hands after garden work
  • Wash and/or peel vegetables harvested from the garden

Related ATTRA Resources:

Topic Area: Soil

Toolkit: How to Reduce Synthetic Fertilizer Use

Other Resources:

Manage Compost and Soil Contaminated with Broadleaf Herbicides in Residential, School, and Community Gardens, North Carolina State University Extension

Herbicide Contaminated Soil and Amendments, Montana State University Extension

This blog is produced by the National Center for Appropriate Technology through the ATTRA Sustainable Agriculture program, under a cooperative agreement with USDA Rural Development. ATTRA.NCAT.ORG.

Using Google Earth Pro to Create a Map for Your Agricultural Operation

By Justin Morris, NCAT Regenerative Grazing Specialist

Have you ever wondered how to make a digital map that can show the existing and planned infrastructure for virtually any piece of land in the world? Have you wondered how you can measure the area of a particular field or the length of a proposed fence or pipeline? Have you wondered what the elevation is at different locations? The answers to all these questions lie in getting familiar with the free tool Google Earth Pro.

Google Earth, a computer program that’s been around since 2001, is a great tool for visualizing a landscape. There are three versions of Google Earth currently available, depending on the type of device being used and the features that are needed. There are two versions of Google Earth—one is web-based and the other is for mobile devices. These two versions are not designed for creating maps that require infrastructure to be added to them. The third version, Google Earth Pro, is the full-feature version that is best for creating maps. The Pro version only works on desktops or laptops running Windows, Mac, or Linux operating systems. A high-speed internet connection is also very helpful to minimize the refresh time for aerial imagery.

Steve Gabriel with Wellspring Forest Farm in central New York released a four-part video series on YouTube that does a fantastic job showing how to create a map of a farming/ranching operation using Google Earth Pro. Following are links to each of the four videos, along with their respective run times.

Program Installation and Basic Navigation (12 mins, 35 sec)

Drawing Infrastructure, Measuring Distances and Areas (14 min 54 sec)

Making Contour Maps and Importing Soil Survey Information (18 min 22 sec)

More Applications for Farming and Ranching (13 min 39 sec)

Related NCAT Resources:

Using Web Soil Survey to Learn Your Land’s Potential

 

Carbon Farm Planning

By Elise Haschke, Climate and Agriculture Program Manager, and Darron Gaus, Sustainable Agriculture Specialist

It’s early Fall on New Leaf Agriculture, a USDA-certified organic, diversified, specialty crop farm in Central Texas. New Leaf grows vegetables, fruits, fiber, and natural dye plants, along with raising pastured eggs. We’re walking the farm alongside its director, Matt Simon, and identifying all opportunities for carbon capture and storage on the farm. This journey is part of the creative Carbon Farm Planning process, which maps every square foot of a farm property and paints the picture of an abundantly fertile working landscape through the adoption of conservation practices that maintain living roots, integrate agroforestry systems, minimally disturb the soil, utilize alternative soil amendments, and incorporate species diversity.

Carbon Farm Planning is a comprehensive conservation planning framework that centers carbon as the organizing principle on working lands. Developed by Carbon Cycle Institute in 2014, Carbon Farm Planning recognizes that solar energy is the main driver of agroecosystem dynamics and that carbon is the carrier of that energy. In partnership with Carbon Cycle Institute, NCAT is expanding this planning framework into Texas with funding from Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SSARE) and The Meadows Foundation.

A Carbon Farm Plan begins with the farm goals, historical and current land use, and a full site assessment of soils, hydrology, climate conditions, wildlife, and resource concerns. The Planner and producer then work together to identify all opportunities for enhanced carbon capture and storage with concurrent co-benefits, including greater adaptation to extreme weather, improved water-holding capacity, biodiversity, and productivity. NRCS conservation practices are then selected and the greenhouse gas benefits of selected practices are quantified using the COMET tool. The final Carbon Farm Plan report includes a table of recommended practices and implementation guidelines.

Each farm’s Plan is an adaptive tool intended to support producer decision-making over time. It is a living, malleable document with neither rigid timelines nor contractual agreements. The canvas is soon full of new ideas and practices that the farmer and Planner agree are best for farm goals and carbon sequestration capabilities. It is now time to look at how these brush strokes come to life at the farm.

Back on New Leaf, we observe two fields in particular that have been struggling to produce annual crops. What’s happening in these fields to compromise soil health and productivity? We bent down and scooped small handfuls of moist Wilson clay loam in our hands. Preliminary soil tests had revealed slightly basic, calciferous soil with low levels of potassium. The immediate recommendation was to apply potassium sulfate, K-Mag, and Azomite to begin decalcifying the soil and lowering the pH. This process can take up to six months. Meanwhile, NCAT’s Darron Gaus recommended a longer-term regenerative strategy to re-balance the soil microbiome. The four-step succession begins with broadcasting cover crop seeds to establish living roots and aerate the soil with large root system species. Two months later, the cover crop stand is to be mowed low, but kept alive, and grazed by the farm’s 150 chickens in order to avoid disruptive tillage and to work natural fertilizer into the soil. Grazing is followed by another low mowing and a 6-inch application of compost. Then transplants or large seeded direct seeding of annual cash crops goes directly into the compost.

Matt recently summarized the process to an interested audience as working with a team of carbon farming technical assistance providers to help the farm get “real” about practice goals, offer accountability, and align practices with NRCS standards while distinguishing the farm with specifics that intrigue customers and provide values-added integrity.

Additional recommendations for New Leaf include planting windbreaks in the direction of the prevailing northerly winter winds and southeasterly summer winds, establishing pollinator hedgerows and multi-story cropping orchard fields, prescribed grazing throughout the farm, and planting conservation cover and herbaceous wind barriers along the berms and swales. Down the road, biannual soil samples will be collected per NCAT’s Soil for Water soil sampling protocol and sent off to Regen Ag Labs to monitor and track soil health indicators over time.

Now the painting starts taking on real-life animation. Matt and the New Leaf team, including refugees through the Multicultural Refugee Coalition who have been given “the potential to thrive in their new communities through dignified, fair-wage work,” all begin work on implementation of the Carbon Farm Plan practices. New Leaf’s already rich, diversified farm begins to take a new, breathtaking approach toward carbon sequestration. A beautiful food forest has begun to take shape in Central Texas, thanks to CCI and the Carbon Farm Planning process. New Leaf has already enhanced the new thought process with fresh ideas, all while growing fresh produce and sustainable products that will provide unmeasurable benefits to the surrounding communities.

To learn more about Carbon Farm Planning, register for our annual conference, Growing Hope: Practical Tools for Our Changing Climate. This free, virtual convening will feature Carbon Cycle Institute and producers with a Carbon Farm Plan on Tuesday, February 28. If you would like to reach out to us about potential Carbon Farm Planning at your farm, ranch, or land stewardship project, email darrong@ncat.org. If you would like to discuss carbon in your operation with other like-minded peers, post your question or comments to the ATTRA forum.

Related ATTRA Resources

Episode 284. Carbon Farm Planning 

ATTRA Annual 2023 Conference, Growing Hope: Practical Tools for Our Changing Climate

Other Resources

New Leaf Agriculture

Multicultural Refugee Coalition

Carbon Cycle Institute

Southern SARE

The Meadows Foundation

 

Counting Plants Is Fun and Easy—And It Helps Track Your Regenerative Grazing Practices

By Lee Rinehart

In the summer of 2004, I was a cooperative Extension agent in southwest Montana. A county agent’s job description is as big as the Montana sky… almost infinite. Sometimes organizing educational events or visiting remote ranches to take forage samples. 4H club meetings and weighing steers at the county fair. Walking barley and alfalfa fields scouting for noxious weeds or setting up grazing trials and tallying leafy spurge plants on the uplands. But walking the semi-arid rangelands with a small group of ranchers that summer taught me one of the most important lessons I would learn as a grazingland educator: we as grassland stewards need to look down more. We need to calibrate our eyes to the plant community on the land as opposed to scanning the pasture and guessing what is there.

Why? Well, knowing what plants (and how many) are growing in the pasture is crucial for making informed management decisions. To determine a stocking rate, we need to know how much dry matter is available for grazing and how much to set aside to keep the pasture healthy. This is actually a really fun exercise, and you can read more about how to do it in ATTRA’s Pasture, Rangeland, and Adaptive Grazing. But in addition to matching forage supply to animal demand, I believe it is equally crucial for us to have a good sense of the plant community that is out there, to have baseline data of the population and track it over time. With this information in hand, we can determine the effects of our grazing practices. With a few easily acquired and inexpensive tools, and just a few hours per year, we can gather data that will empirically show us whether we are making positive or negative impacts on the land.

In my work in pasture monitoring, I have found that the most important qualities to measure are canopy cover, frequency of plants, and plant composition. There are many other attributes to look at and you can go as deep as you want, but these work for me. Canopy cover is an expression of the percentage of the ground surface that is covered by plants. Frequency is a measure of the abundance and the distribution of the plant species present. And plant composition is a calculated measurement that reflects the proportion of plant species in relation to the total sampling area. These characteristics answer the question “what plants, and how many, do I have in my pasture?” It’s easy to see where this information would be useful. As land managers, we can use them to track landscape changes over time and to see if we are increasing or decreasing in plant community diversity over time given our grazing practices.

For pasture plant community monitoring, I have two favorites. One easy, and one just a little less easy but providing more accurate data. I will start with the less easy method.

The Daubenmire Method involves using a 20- by 50-centimeter quadrat frame placed along a measuring tape at permanent transects. The tape (100- or 200-foot) is stretched along a selected bearing in the pasture. Drive steel pins into the ground surface at the zero point on the tape and at the end of the transect to mark the permanent location. A T-post can be used to mark the permanent location and make it easy to find in subsequent years.

Now comes the fun part! Place a 20 x 50-centimeter quadrat frame along the tape at specified intervals, which may be every 10 feet, 20 feet, or whatever you choose. Then you can estimate the canopy coverage of each plant species within each quadrat along the transect and record the data on the Daubenmire form. From there, you can easily calculate the percent canopy cover by species, the percent frequency for each plant species, and the species composition. Voilà! You now have a baseline of information, and you can come back each year to track plant community changes.

Daubenmire form

Daubenmire form. Source: BLM

I learned the Daubenmire method on Montana rangelands and it really gave me a new perspective on the landscape. As I alluded to earlier, having data on pasture plant composition has really calibrated my eye… and when I would subsequently gaze out over a landscape, I had a better idea of what, and how much, was really growing there. So, if you’re interested, I have placed a great resource from the BLM in the below that provides detailed information on how to construct a quadrat, how to lay out a transect, and how to count plants and make the calculations. Go for it!

Now, the easy (or easier) method. The Step-Point Method is a simple procedure for counting individual plants and the best part is that it can be done just by having a casual walk across the pasture. It can be done several ways, but most references suggest placing a mark on the tip of your boot (maybe a notch or a mark with a black Sharpie). I like to use a walking stick, or a pasture rule with a nail taped at the end with electrical tape. As you walk the field, every five or 10 paces you look at the boot-mark (or walking stick nail) and identify what it is touching. This could be a single grass plant of a particular species, a forb, bare ground, a rock, whatever is important for you to monitor. Each observation is called a “hit,” and you record this on the Step-Point form. Once you have taken 50 to 100 hits, you simply tally the hits for each individual species or plant types you recorded, and then calculate percent composition. For a fun variation on this, take along yard darts and randomly throw them out along your transect and record just as you would the Step-Point method.

We have put together a video where you can follow along as I perform the Step-Point Method. Watch it here.

Related NCAT Resources:

Test Driving the New LandPKS Land Monitoring App

Rangeland App: Modern Tool for Graziers

Other Resources:

Sampling Vegetation Attributes

This blog is produced by the National Center for Appropriate Technology through the ATTRA Sustainable Agriculture program, under a cooperative agreement with USDA Rural Development. ATTRA.NCAT.ORG. 

Drought Resilience Webinar Series with Dale Strickler

In this webinar series, Dale Strickler covers all aspects of creating drought-free agriculture. Strickler is a rancher, educator, and agronomist who consults internationally on sustainable farming. His 2018 book, “The Drought Resilient Farm,” details myriad ways to restore soil biology, build resilience to droughts and floods, and create enduring health, wealth, and happiness for farmers.

Session 1: Building Drought Resilient Soils

Session 2: Ranching for Rain and Drought Resilience

Session 3: Creating Drought-Free Agriculture

This webinar series is based upon work that is supported by the Natural Resource Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under number NR203A750001C025. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S Department of Agriculture. USDA is an equal opportunity employer and service provider.

This video is produced by the National Center for Appropriate Technology through the ATTRA Sustainable Agriculture program, under a cooperative agreement with USDA Rural Development. ATTRA.NCAT.ORG.

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Improving Profitability: Sheep, Goats, and Cattle

By Linda Coffey, NCAT Agriculture Specialist

As I write this, it’s the last week of 2022. I am thinking about upcoming tax information to file and looking at the barn to see if our hay is going to last longer than winter. I’m looking at our pregnant ewes and wondering: “Was this a good year? Will 2023 be better?”

Last year, the weather was a big factor for us. A cold, wet spring was followed by sudden and intense heat, and cool-season grasses didn’t do well. Then rainfall was sporadic and finally stopped for weeks. The fall was hot and dry and again, and cool-season grasses didn’t do well. We were not able to stockpile fescue because our animals needed the feed. Winter came early, with three snows before Thanksgiving (in Arkansas!), and December brought more snow and brutal cold, so we are going through our hay stash at an alarming pace.

The weather is not in our control and not in yours, either. But we are not helpless. Let’s think about some of the ways we can be sure that 2023 is a better year.

Match the number and kind of animals with your farm resources. This was well discussed on a recent ATTRA podcast by agriculture specialists Lee Rinehart and Nina Prater. Having animals that can thrive in your environment and with your management means better health, fewer problems, and lower cost of production. On our farm, our Gulf Coast sheep certainly thrive and are trouble-free, if you don’t count their disrespect for the electric fence this year. In hindsight, though, when the weather turned hot and dry, it would have been smart to cull the least productive ewes so that the farm could easily support the better ones. Why didn’t we? We are optimists! In 2023, I plan to adjust more quickly to the weather patterns.

Watch body condition on the livestock, especially going into winter, before giving birth, and before breeding. Research has shown that animals kept in moderate body condition have a stronger immune system, get through the winter with less feed and in better shape, have more twins (for small ruminants), breed back more easily, and are better mothers. For beef cattle, body condition score (BCS) has been linked with profitability, as shown in the South Dakota State University article (link). See “Influence of Body Condition on Reproductive Performance of Beef Cows” from October 2020 SDSU Animal Science Department article (Walker, et al.) and pay special attention to Table 2. There, the connection between BCS, pregnancy rate, calving interval, calf gains, weaning weights, calf prices, and finally “$/Cow Exposed” are listed. A BCS of 6 more than doubled the income compared to a BCS of 3. In 2023, I plan to monitor body condition and improve the amount and quality of feed offered at the critical times to boost twinning and milk production, resulting in more productive ewes.

Manage the grazing to improve soil health and forage production. While we cannot make it rain, our management affects how much rain we keep on our farm and how much goes to a creek. Only the water we keep is growing our grass. The great news is that the management needed for soil health also is good for keeping plants healthy and growing, and it’s a continuously improving loop, as Lee and Nina discussed in their podcast. Check out NCAT’s Soil for Water program to learn more about increasing soil health on your farm, and please join the network and the conversation to share your knowledge and your questions. In 2022, our weak link was the aforementioned disrespect for the electric fence. Sheep are not the smartest grass managers; they like the forage short and sweet. Clipping forage too short exposes sheep to parasite larvae, hurts pasture regrowth, doesn’t allow enough energy in the diet thus causing weight loss, hurts soil health by exposing bare ground, leaves us vulnerable to weeds due to the bare ground, and can eventually kill out palatable plants, leaving only the tough, unpalatable ones. These are the cascading effects of grazing too short. Instead, I want to make the decisions about where they are grazing, moving them off before the grass is 4 inches tall and not letting them back until it is fully recovered. I want short grazing periods so that they have less chance of picking up internal parasites and less chance of grazing regrowth. By controlling the grazing, I can influence the total productivity of our farm—plants, soil, and livestock. By providing better nutrition, I can improve gains on lambs and productivity on the ewes, leading to better BCS. In 2023, I plan to work on our electric fence, testing it often and keeping it around 9,000 volts or higher. If I see a rogue animal in the wrong pasture, I will bring it in for retraining in a small lot with hot wire. Repeat offenders belong in our freezer or on a truck headed to a sale.

There is lots more I could decide to do to improve profitability; these ideas really deal with nutrition and caring for the pastures. Of course, recordkeeping, marketing, and planning are vital, and there are useful resources listed below to help with those aspects. Please listen to the podcast Episode 281 about improving profitability and then share your ideas and comments. We all learn best from other farmers, and I look forward to hearing from you. Post your questions and comments on the ATTRA Forum. Best wishes to you and your farm in 2023!

References:

Walker, Julie, George Perry, Warren Rusche, and Olivia Amundson. 2020. Influence of Body Condition on Reproductive Performance of Beef Cows. South Dakota State University Extension.

Fernandez, David. Body Condition Scoring of Sheep. University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. FSA 9610.

Related ATTRA Resources:

Episode 281. Improving Profitability on Livestock Operations 

Episode 261. Summer Grazing for Winter Stockpile

Managed Grazing Tutorial

Demystifying Regenerative Grazing and Soil Health with Dr. Allen Williams

Small Ruminant Sustainability Checksheet

Beef Farm Sustainability Checksheet (EZ)

Other Resources:

Ranching for Profit 

Holistic Management International

Understanding Ag

This blog is produced by the National Center for Appropriate Technology through the ATTRA Sustainable Agriculture program, under a cooperative agreement with USDA Rural Development. ATTRA.NCAT.ORG. 

Partner Spotlight: Dixon Water Foundation

By Mike Morris and Darron Gaus

With roots in regenerative land stewardship since 1994, The Dixon Water Foundation has been approaching one of Texas’s limited resources in a unique way. While many other groups promote better livestock management and land stewardship, Dixon is one of the few organizations nationally in its specific focus on using grazing to protect and improve water resources.  

Dixon’s mission of promoting healthy watersheds through sustainable land management is accomplished through integrating livestock, research, and education. The foundation manages four large ranches in west and north Texas totaling more than 15,000 acres “On Dixon Ranches, livestock are the tool we use to create healthier land and healthier watersheds,” says their website. 

When asked why Dixon takes such a specific approach to water conservation, Robert Potts, President and CEO, said, “Because it is what we know, and it is what we are good at.” Dixon is a leading organization in regenerative land stewardship, and they’ve been doing it for nearly 30 years, long before “regenerative” became a buzz word.  

Photo: The Dixon Water Foundation

Dixon was one of the Soil for Water Project’s first funders. Their mission is similar to ours, and we owe them a great deal of gratitude. We’re fortunate to have Philip Boyd, Vice President of Science & Research, and Casey Wade, Vice President of Ranching Operations, working alongside us as we provide education and set up small-scale “safe-to-fail” trials across Texas. Dixon works with researchers at universities and nonprofit organizations like Sul Ross State University’s Borderland Research Institute and Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory to monitor their ranch management methods. These monitoring efforts include watersheds, soils, plants, and wildlife. In one study with Richard Teague, they were able to confirm that multi-paddock adaptive grazing improves water conservation and protects water quality. Philip also runs numerous education events at the west Texas ranches, along with Education Program Coordinator Melissa Bookhout at the north Texas ranches, providing practical firsthand knowledge to landowners, school children, and the public.  

Rachel Vasquez recently talked to us about her work as Vice President of Grants. She was enthusiastic about spreading the work of land stewardship and water conservation through the Dixon grants program and a new and upcoming apprenticeship program. The apprenticeship program will help new ranch managers coming out of college gain real expertise in regenerative practices that heal our land. Dixon is about conserving water resources for generations to come, so it’s appropriate that they are training young people.  

Learn more about the Dixon’s work here and connect with our Regenerative Grazing Specialists at the Forum.  

Related NCAT Resources 

Pasture, Rangeland, and Adaptive Grazing

Soil Health Indicators and Tests

Paddock Design, Fencing, Water Systems, and Livestock Movement Strategies for Multi-Paddock Grazing

Using Web Soil Survey to Learn Your Land’s Potential

By Justin Morris, NCAT Regenerative Grazing Specialist 

Have you ever wondered where the best place is to get information on the soils for your land? What if that information could tell you what kind of soil you have, how deep it is, how much water it could hold, or how much forage could be grown on each acre of your land in a year. Fortunately, there is such a source. It’s called the Web Soil Survey and you can access it from any laptop or desktop. 

Launched in 2006 by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Web Soil Survey allows anyone to define any area they’re interested in within the United States and retrieve all sorts of soil-related information about that area. Here’s just a small sampling of what can be found: 

  • Soil map unit symbol and name 
  • Acres of a specific soil map unit within a defined area 
  • Soil textures in the top five feet 
  • Available water supply in inches for the top five feet 
  • Land capability classification 
  • Average annual precipitation 
  • Frost-free period 
  • Rangeland production during favorable, normal, and unfavorable years 
  • Yields of irrigated and non-irrigated crops including pasture and hayland 
  • And much, much more! 

For those of you who are familiar with the hard copies of the soil survey, those are no longer available. Once you get used to using the Web Soil Survey interface, getting just the information you need without combing through a thick hard copy page by page becomes far easier to use and more accurate. And for those who still want a hard copy of something, not to worry. Everything in Web Soil Survey can be printed.  

You can get started with Web Soil Survey. Once there, click on the big green “Start WSS” button. You’ll see a map of the lower 48 states with several tool buttons just above and to the left of the map. If you happen to be interested in an area in Alaska, Hawaii, or Puerto Rico, just click on the white hand tool to pan to those areas.  

Alternatively, you can jump to any area by moving your cursor over to the menu bar at the far left and clicking on Address or State and County.  

Once you’ve found the area you’re interested in, you can zoom in by using the cursor to select the magnifying lens with the plus symbol inside it. After clicking on the magnifying lens, move the cursor over the map and you’ll notice that the cursor turned into a plus symbol instead of an arrow. Click and drag over the area you want to see in greater detail. If you need to adjust the map east, west, north, or south to get everything in full view, click on the hand button to move the map image.  

Now that you have the area you’re interested in and it’s filling up the entire interactive map view, click on one of two AOI toolbar buttons above the map. The AOI (Area of Interest) button on the left makes a rectangle, whereas the AOI button on the right makes a polygon of nearly any shape. Because field boundaries are rarely ever straight, I almost always select the polygon button. Click around the area you’re interested in and then double-click your mouse to finish the polygon.

If you’ve successfully defined an area of interest, the polygon you traced will have blue diagonal lines through it, as you see above, along with an acreage count for that area. If you weren’t successful on your first attempt to create a polygon, just try again and be sure that on your last corner you double-click your mouse to complete the polygon. If you want to adjust the polygon you just created, then click on Clear AOI on the upper left. Unfortunately, you can’t edit a single point once the polygon has been fully created. This is why you have to clear the area of interest if you want to make any modifications. You can then start over until you get it to look the way you want it to. 

Now, let’s find out what soils are on this field. Scrolling up to the very top of the webpage, click on the Soil Map tab (see below). The blue diagonal lines on the map will disappear and be replaced by lines delineating soil boundaries. For this 125-acre field, there are just two soil map units – map unit 22, which is a Labenzo silt loam, and map unit 64, which is a Withers silty clay loam. Web Soil Survey shows the number of acres for each soil map unit and their percentage of the total. By the way, this is a great feature that the hard copy soil surveys of yesteryear could never tell you.  

Clicking on the map unit name on the left of the screen reveals a new window with lots of great information about that soil (see below). Here we see the map unit description for the Labenzo silt loam, which includes information on where the soil is generally located, its composition, setting, typical profile soil texture, and properties. 

After clicking on the X in the upper right corner to eliminate the map unit description window, go to the top of the screen and click on the Soil Data Explorer tab (see below).  

 

If you wanted to know what the potential alfalfa hay production is on this field, click on Vegetative Productivity (see above) under the Suitabilities and Limitations Ratings menu. This reveals a lot of different crops, some of which are not suitable for growing in this environment. Scroll down the list of different crops and click on Yields of Irrigated Crops (Component). Click on the dropdown menu and select Alfalfa Hay. Finally, click on View Rating. 

 

Now we have a rating for alfalfa hay in tons per acre for the whole field by soil map unit. The numbers listed under the Rating column are only an estimate and should be used as a rough guide, not as numbers that are absolutely accurate.  

If you want to save this information for the future or print it, click on Printable Version at the top right of the page (see below).  

This is just one of nearly countless ways to find soil and crop productivity information for a specific piece of land. I’ve covered maybe one percent of what Web Soil Survey has to offer. If you have additional questions on how to use this tremendous tool, just contact your local USDA-NRCS office.