What to do when soil health practices don’t work

Adam Grady was not a stranger to no-till and cover crops when he met consultant Allen Williams in the spring of 2016. He was skeptical, however.

Grady, whose family has farmed on the coastal plains of eastern North Carolina since the late 1700s, had seen his father, Clegg Grady, turn to no-till in the mid-1980s. Tobacco was their king crop, with corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, and milo added in 1999.

By 2005, Grady was no longer seeing benefits from no-till and switched to strip-till. In 2010, he started planting a cover crop of wheat or rye behind tobacco and before a rotation of corn or soybeans.

In 2015, Grady quit tobacco cultivation and cover crops. He turned his focus to the pastured hog enterprise he had started about 10 years earlier.

What began with five gilts and a boar turned into a major income source once local word got out and chefs became repeat customers. Grady’s restaurant connections gained him the attention of the pastured-protein wholesaler Joyce Farms. That operation wanted Grady to build up and supply its pork program.

The stipulation was Grady would need to allow Williams, a founding member of Understanding Ag and the Soil Health Academy, onto his farm to offer recommendations. Understanding Ag is a regenerative agriculture consulting firm made up of farmers and ranchers who provide whole-farm consultation and education services to other producers. Soil Health Academy is Understanding Ag’s hands-on regenerative agriculture training program.

Some of Williams’ first suggestions to Grady and his father were to go back to no-till and to plant a multispecies cover crop. Grady wasn’t convinced these practices would do much, but eventually he tried the advice on 5 acres.

That fall, Grady upped it to 60 acres. By the following year, he was all-in on the 1,000-acre farm.

Today, Grady uses diverse cover crop mixes across the land and is 100% no-till. He also manages his animals, which include beef cattle and seasonal poultry in addition to the hogs, strategically to improve soil health and gradually dial back on synthetic inputs.

Grady has learned it’s not the practices alone that make him successful (or unsuccessful). The key is managing with soil health principles in mind and, more specifically, applying them in a way that fits his operation.

Principles, not just practices

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture promotes four primary soil health management principles:
• • Minimize disturbance
• • Maximize soil cover
• • Maximize biodiversity
• • Maximize presence of living roots

Biodiversity includes animals, according to the USDA, but some organizations, including Understanding Ag, emphasize this point and the way the land historically depended on grazing by making livestock integration a fifth principle.

Understanding Ag also adds a sixth principle, which it places No. 1 on the list: “Know your context.”

Knowing your unique situation, which includes your family and employee dynamics, the history of your land, and your goals, is foundational, Williams says.

Your context must guide how you implement the rest of the soil health principles, he says, adding the danger of not defining your context is the temptation to cherry-pick one or two principles based on practices that seem easiest to apply.

He gives no-till as an example. No-till may improve soil health some when used alone, “but then you stagnate,” Williams says, as was the case with the Grady family.

“No-till is an important tool, but, in itself, it is a single tool,” Williams says. He points out that minimizing soil disturbance is not just about minimizing tillage. Other tools that are also disturbances include applications of fertilizer, manure, and pesticides as well as grazing.

Make it work for you

No single tool is inherently good or bad but must be applied appropriately and within context, otherwise it can easily turn into a prescription, Williams says. He describes a prescription as a situation where the same tools, or practices, are applied in the same manner year after year, without adaptation based on changes occurring on the land and in the operation. Prescriptions lead to frustration, he says.

“It’s only if we implement the other five principles within our context that they really work profitably, effectively, and efficiently,” Williams says.

Grady describes context as “implementing the principles in the best manner to fit my operation.”

He’s not set up for livestock in some areas, so he tries to maximize the other four principles on these pieces of land and animal impact on others.

Cover crops can be a triple whammy when used to their full potential. They armor the soil, provide living roots, and increase diversity. Note, however, that planting a single-species cover crop, commonly wheat or rye, will limit the principle of diversity, according to Williams.

Different plant species recruit different microbes, each of which play their own roles in the ecosystem of growing productive plants. Consistently growing the same crops can create an overpopulation of a particular microbe, which may push out other beneficial microbes.

When developing your cover crop mix, consider your needs for that season. Sow species that will help you correct any issues the previous crop might have created (such as a nitrogen deficiency) and that will feed the next cash crop. Keep the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio and other goals such as erosion control in mind.

Your climate and broader production goals will also factor in. 

Grady says he has learned that brassicas tend to take over in his sandy soil and moist environment, so his cover crop mixes don’t include as many plants in the cabbage and mustard family as someone’s in another part of the country might.

Brassicas, especially tuberous ones such as turnips and radishes, are excellent at storing nutrients, which is great if you’re using the cover crop strictly for soil health benefits between cash crops. However, Grady uses much of his covers for grazing and doesn’t want brassicas stealing nutrition from species that provide forage.

After adopting a principles-based approach to his operation, Grady says he is less concerned when a practice doesn’t work. He now asks himself why and uses the power of observation, sometimes through planned replications, to figure out how to better manage the situation. 

He knows not everything that works in North Carolina will work elsewhere, and vice versa, but principles hold true. He encourages people to do their own research but to also connect with others who have experience in principles-based, regenerative management.

“And know you don’t have to turn the whole farm over at one time,” Grady says, remembering his initial skepticism. “Just give it a try on some acres.”