Re: Soil Equilibrium

From: Steve Diver (steved@NCATARK.UARK.EDU)
Date: Fri Jan 03 2003 - 15:51:51 EST


Rick Hopkins asks about ways to improve pastures soils.

Rotational grazing, interspecies grazing, and legume
overseeding are known to be good practices, yet
supplemental organic matter and mineral nutrition are
topics to be explored.

Having lived on four different small farms in the Ozarks,
I have given this topic some thought.

Ozark soils in general are known to be shallow and
weathered. Phosphorus is low on a soil test.
Nitrogen is low on a soil test. Thus, rock phosphate
and nitrogen are both needed very commonly.

The following ideas are different than your average
way to think about pasture soils.

They will also work for small market farmers raising
vegetables, flowers, and herbs.

Practical approaches to increase organic matter,
biological activity, and mineral availability:

1. Pin some of your cattle and bring them fodder;
the purpose is to collect farmyard manure for
the production of compost.

To a grazier, this seems like a retrograde approach.
It brings to mind a feedlot. Yet, think about sustainable
agriculture in the rest of the world, not the American
feedlot model. Worldwide, you will find that many
sustainable, small-scale farmers practice zero grazing;
they keep cattle close to home and bring them fodder.
The bedding is mixed with manure and urine, and
serves as a source of farmyard manure to fertilize
the crops. Better yet, it serves as a feedstock for
compost piles.

Rick says he does not support confinement livestock.
Well, pin some of your cattle up and collect your
own manure.

The power of compost is worth the trouble to pin cattle and
make compost. You are transforming raw materials into
stable, humified organic matter. It serves as a source of
beneficial microbes and soil biota, it provides humus crumb
and promotes soil structure, it has a massive nutrient
exchange complex.

Remember, 97% of your cattle will still be grazing on
pastures as usual. I am suggesting you keep about a
half-dozen cattle pinned up to collect their manure and
bedding. It is a strategy. From the biodynamic perspective,
it is preferred that you collect manure from lactating cows.

Typically graziers let their cows poop out on the land.

On a healthy cattle farm the dung beetles attack the cow
manure so quickly you can hardly go find an intact cow
pie. It is turned into an apartment dwelling for beneficial
insects in a matter of minutes or hours. In a day or two,
it is lying flat on the ground, its contents sucked dry
and gobbled up.

On a cattle farm that uses chemical wormers and pesticide
dips and sprays for flies, the cow pies are biologically dead;
the cow pies are intact but they are not worth gathering.
The cow pie attract flies, not beneficial insects. Weeks and
weeks after it is laid, it is still sitting there... intact. The cycle
of nutrient cycling is broken.

This can be understood as "the tale of the two cow pies."

2. Use some manure to make CPP.

CPP is Cow Pit Pat. It is also known as Barrel Compost.
This is a biodynamic practice that mixes basalt rock dust
and egg shells with raw manure, followed by laying
this material in a brick-lined pit. The BD compost preps
are inserted into the raw manure recipe. It sits in the pit
for 3 months, then harvested.

The power of CPP is foretold again and again on
the biodynamic farm. It is not the same as compost
that has gone through thermophyllic breakdown
and buildup phases, but when it is finished it is earthy
and humusy and it has the power of CPP-style
compost.

The Korean Natural Farming Association talks about
the production of IM, Indigenous Microorganisms.
This the method where boiled rice is laid on the forest
floor for a week to allow local microbes to grow into
the rice, it is then fed with molasses, a portion is
then put into a 1:10 dilution of water and allowed to sit,
it is then strained. The strained material is a microbial
stock solution of IM. The IM solution can be sprayed
on soils, composts, and crop plants as a source of local
indigenous microorganisms.

Yet, if you think about CPP, it is an IM method from
the western organic farming experience.

What if you go to your farm and find some of your
very best soil and take a few shovel fulls and put that
on the bottom on the CPP pit. The same with forest
soils mixed with leaf litter. Go to the mightiest oak
tree on your land and take a few shovels full of
forest litter soil. Lay it on the bottom of the CPP pit
just before you add the CPP-recipe of raw manure.

When you make CPP, you will be encouraging
the propagation of IMO's along with the natural
processes that take place with CPP.

Horn manure, or BD500, is another "western"
approach to IM's, if you think about it.

Of course, the BD preps marshall dynamic forces
on the farm as well as facilitate biological processes,
thus the term Biological-Dynamic agriculture.

3. Veganic compost.

Veganic compost is a term that simply means you make
compost from plant biomass. No animal manures are
involved.

On a cattle farm, you have a lot of pasture. One year,
cut some hay and put it up for dry fodder storage. The
next year year, make some green chop. Go get your
dry hay and grind that up. Make a compost windrow
from dry hay and fresh green chop. You can tweak
the pile with amendments of clay and rock minerals.

Is is worth it to do this. Yes. Compost is very powerful.

Do you need this on a smoothly running cattle farm
based on grass farming. No.

Veganic compost can be helpful as a jump start if you
are starting out with poor pasture soils, or if you have
a stockless market farm.

4. Vermicompost.

As soon as winter breaks, start a large vermicomposting
operation on your farm mixing manure with hay put into
storage especially as a feedstock bedding for worms.
When you make your first cut of hay, start some more
vermicomposting windrows.

When the vermicompost is just about finished, add
selected biofertilizers depending on what you need.
Nitrogen fixers and phosphorus solubilizers are
common microbial inoculants used as biofertilizers.

Transform biomass products like extra grass and leaves
and manure into vermicompost.

5. Mineralized compost.

In the production of thermophyllic compost, amend
the piles with rock phosphate. The organic acids
from microbial decomposition of organic matter help
to solubilize the rock minerals. The bioavailable P will
be equivalent to 0-0-20. That's an amazing transformation
of slowly-available P into a biologically-active P.

If your soil test says you need K, then find some rock
sources of K and amend your compost piles.

Increase the organic-mineral complex of the compost
and transform your soils.

6. Compost teas.

Thermophyllic compost and vermicompost are excellent
sources of feedstock for the production of compost teas.

Compost teas supply soluble nutrients, they provide
beneficial microorganisms, and they provide beneficial
bioactive substances.

Well, these are a few ideas. The focus is on-farm
solutions to organic matter management, increasing
soil biological activity and diversity, and mineral availability.
If you just graze and poop on the land, that's OK. But if
you think about the power of transformed organic matter,
composts, compost teas, and pre-solubilized rock minerals,
you can integrate these practices with pasture management.

Steve Diver

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