Healthy soils

Soil health (quality) is the ability of a soil to perform various functions such as supporting plant growth and biological diversity, regulating and altering water flow, and providing an environmental buffer against hazardous compounds. An acre of healthy soil can contain up to 900 pounds of earthworms, 2,400 pounds of fungi (mushrooms and similar organisms), 1,500 pounds of bacteria, and 890 pounds of arthropods (insects) and algae.

In the past, farmers mostly plowed their fields to prepare the ground and plant seeds. However, tilling uses fossil fuels. It also breaks apart glomalin (soil protein from fungus), a kind of organic “glue” that holds healthy soil together. Tilling disrupts the soil, which causes carbon to release into the air.

Today, more and more farmers use conservation tillage and no-till methods on their acres to prepare a seed bed, kill weeds, incorporate nutrients, and manage crop residues. No-till systems disrupt the soil very little, except to plant crops. No-till farming allows the creation of glomalin, creating spaces for carbon and water to collect, thereby adding to soil health and reducing water runoff. Both soil health and carbon sequestration (the storage of carbon dioxide from the air to the ground) improve with no-till practices because they improve soil structure and biological activity. About half of the land used to grow the major crops in the U.S.
(like corn, wheat, soybeans, and cotton) employs no-till or conservation tillage methods. Watch this video to see demonstrations of the lessons.