Revolution in Soil Health

Regenerative ag is the theme of the day, or decade, actually. It means everything thought to be good about farming and soil management. It comes down to four recommended practices: 1) reduce tillage, 2) integrate livestock with cropping, 3) rotate crops, and 4) utilize cover cropping. (We have already talked about #2, holistic livestock management along with virtual fencing.)

This month we are going to talk about cover cropping. The idea is to keep a crop on the ground. Around here, this does not happen much in summer, fallow between wheat crops, or in spring crops following wheat harvest.

At first blush, cover crops on summer fallow ground do not make sense. Summer fallow is leaving a field without a crop between seeded crops. The idea is to let a field lie "fallow" a year tp store up water.  Dryland wheat growers shake their heads about growing a cover crop on ground they are trying to store water for the next wheat crop. Summer fallow growers’ principal challenge is to keep weeds from sucking up the water they are trying to accumulate to grow the next cash crop. They spend money killing Russian Thistles with tillage or chemical.

Ryan is going to talk to us about how Palouse growers can and do use cover crops, and why. Ryan is a pioneer in his work with Pacific Northwest farmers. Learn the ups and downs of his work.

Don Schwerin, Chair, Ag & Rural Caucus, Washington State Democrats