Holistic Management International

Healthy Land, Healthy Food, Healthy Lives

5 Is the Magic Cover Number

by 17 Comments

Gabe Brown’s Regenerative Farming Practices (North Dakota)

In an article titled “Soil Carbon is King ” published in the Western Star, Graeme Sait  focuses on how more people need to understand how soil carbon is critical to reducing the excess carbon in the atmosphere. Even if we stop all emissions, there is still too much carbon in the atmosphere for the ecosystem to function in a way to support human life. As we build organic matter/soil carbon in the soil through regenerative agriculture practices, we are taking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it in the soil where it used to be.

Graeme also wants to convince farmers to plant cover crops as the answer to getting in the carbon in the ground. Certainly, if every grain farmer began adding cover crops to their crop rotations that would make a huge addition (as would a switch to no- or low-till farming)  to carbon sequestrating agriculture. If you added all graziers using planned grazing as a tool to improve the organic matter in grazing soils and then included more perennial crops instead of annuals, then the amount of plants pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and fixing it in the ground would be phenomenal.

But while cover crops are a critical piece of the puzzle, the particularly fascinating nugget in this article was the information that USDA research showed that farmers had the best success for increased soil carbon when using cover crops of 5 or more types of seeds to create a synergistic effect that kicked soil life into gear. In particular, it was critical that the 5 seeds included: grasses, cereals, brassicas, chenopods, and legumes.

It’s like a phenolic party at that point if you get the right combination, because the plants message each other through root exudates and the soil organisms belly up to the root exudate bar for phenolic compound shots. All that activity results in better soil structure and more organic matter. Graeme goes on to explain the eight benefits cover crops give to help encourage the resistant farmer into giving them a try.

Reasons for Cover Crops

  1. Nature abhors a vacuum and plants give 30% of their glucose every day to the soil organisms
  2. Suppress weeds
  3. Provide minerals and nutrients to cash crop
  4. Protect against root knot nematodes
  5. Brassicas provide allelopathic protection against weeds
  6. Feed soil organisms the glucose they produce and exude from their roots
  7. Seriously reduce erosion (just .1% of rain events cause 75% of erosion). Residues are better than bare soil but there is nothing like a live root to hold the soil in place.
  8. Provide habitat for all kinds of animals particularly pollinators

Holistic Management practitioner, Gabe Brown, found that when he planted one cover crop seed (turnips), one inch of rain made for a struggling plant (left). But with a good cover crop mix (right), the one inch of rain created a lot more green growing plants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learn more about how Gabe Brown has been able to increase the organic matter in his soils from 1% to 6%.

To learn more about how Holistic Management heals the land, visit our Regenerative Solution page.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Paul says

    Sorry, I couldn’t get out of the first paragraph. I grew up on a farm and I raise my own food and to make the statement that there’s already too much carbon in the atmosphere to support human life even if we stopped all emissions is total BS. I actually think the planets getting warmer and I personally hate pollution, but statements like this don’t help our cause. I have greenhouses and I purposely pump in CO2 at certain times of the year so my plants do better. Plants love 400 parts per million which is exactly how much carbon there is in the atmosphere now. Just stick to the facts and tell the truth, if you can’t make a case doing that then you don’t have a case to begin with. The planet has been a lot warmer than it is right now. You can go to Siberia and find huge areas of hundreds and thousands of woolly mammoth bones. This is way way way north of the permafrost and these animals are grazers. The planet was much Greener and much warmer. Again, focus on things that people can see and that we can change like all of the other dangers of emissions. I don’t know what are those white streaks everywhere in the sky? Maybe start with something like that. Just my 2 cents.

    Reply

    • Ann Adams says

      Hi Paul,
      Glad to hear you are concerned about pollution. The point of the article I was quoting was that we have put excess carbon into the atmosphere from the pollution of mining soil carbon and putting it into the atmosphere with unsustainable farming practices. They are unsustainable because they require more purchased inputs and reduce resilience of working landscapes to deal with extreme weather events like droughts and floods. You might also be interested in the research about how soil cover and management practices affect the water cycle. See my other blog: https://holisticmanagement.org/featured-blog-posts/holistic-management-can-make-rain/

      Reply

    • Roger says

      Paul is right and you dodged the issue; the statement that “Even if we stop all emissions, there is still too much carbon in the atmosphere for the ecosystem to function in a way to support human life”, may be you opinion, but is very much an open question. By overreaching you have destroyed your credibility even if your conclusion is true. Shoddy logic.

      Reply

      • Ann Adams says

        Hi Paul,
        My comment about the excess carbon in the atmosphere is a reflection of most of the scientific literature out there as to the levels of pre-industrial carbon versus post-industrial carbon and the affect this has on the environment. The major climate issues we are facing today may not be entirely caused by greenhouse gases alone, but the question still remains what do we want to do about the fact we have been mining carbon out of the soil and putting it into the atmosphere. I believe the regenerative agriculture being done that sequesters carbon in the soil is a win-win solution to improve productivity and resilience, moving carbon out of the atmosphere and back into the soil.

        Reply

  2. Cody killingsworth says

    I live in Oklahoma and we are trying to start a sustainable farm and keep our grazing pasture healthy and Sandburg free. We have 35 acres and use goats and sheep for weed control . Sandburrs have taken over every pasture we have. I don’t want to use chemicals but I don’t know what else to do. As with everybody,money is a huge issue. I want to put in a well and get off rural water and also cover crops are a big part of future plans during fall and into early winter,however, I’m very concerned about our Bermuda grass being diminished which is what our horses live and thrive on. Thank you for suggestions

    Reply

  3. Don Ready says

    I grow cover crops and no till in Ontario Canada. I agree with Paul. C02 levels have been as high as 3000ppm in the distant past. More recently they have been 1000ppm (-50 million years). Also we are cool, not hot when you look at geologic time. The frenzy over global warming is BS. The climate has always changed and always will. I lived in the High Arctic and the land is frozen gravel. About the only life is in the oceans. Melt it and bring on the vegetation. About half of the present increase from the recent low of 180ppm came from deforestation for ag which depleted soil OM. The rest is from fossil fuels. You can get too low. C3 plants (the majority) do very poorly at 150ppm. We dodged a major ecodisaster at the end of the last ice age. C4 plants (corn) may have arisen from this selection pressure. The major ecodisaster is an ice age, which we are overdue for. If Canada was being buried in snow, we would be spraying the ice with coal dust and heating the world anyway we could.
    Now to covers. I use a mix but where do you get chenopods? Am I going to seed my troublesome weed, lambsquarters? Also I could not find the article from the USDA.

    Reply

    • Ann Adams says

      Hi Don,
      Certainly the planet has had higher CO2 levels than we currently have. Likewise, it is clear that humans are only one factor in a host of other factors that influence climate change. We also know that current land management on millions of acres worldwide is releasing more carbon into the atmosphere which is resulting in a number of detrimental effects (like acidification of oceans and extreme weather conditions) and certainly is causing less than profitable agriculture due to soils that require more inputs. We believe the focus on getting more carbon in the ground is a critical paradigm shift for the future of agriculture. I assume you do as well given your interest in cover crops. In regards to chenopods, some folks are trying these in their mixes: beets, spinach, quinoa, and amaranth. However, many people are making some good money selling lambsquarters to health food stores as well. Keep up the good work!

      Reply

  4. Todd Bridson says

    Hello. Question: The 54 seeds recommended for cover crops… Do you recommend sewing all 5 at the same time and same field, allowing to mature, till under? Or one followed by the other after tilling each one in? I will be using a wind seeder/broadcaster then lightly drag over. Also, which would I till young vs. maturation?

    Reply

    • Ann Adams says

      Hi Todd,
      How you seed and till under will depend on a number of factors. Usually to get the most benefit from a cover crop mix, you will seed them all at once as they create symbiotic relationships that increase the beneficial outcomes. Usually, producers will either use livestock to incorporate the mature cover crop or terminate the crop in some other way at the time they are ready to plant a cash crop. Good luck with your cover crop experiments!

      Reply

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