By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH
Indiana Correspondent

MONTPELIER, Ohio — After beginning his presentation on soil health by admitting “I’m a recovering soil destroyer; I love to till,” Ray Archuleta spent the next couple of hours discussing the subject, before a roomful of attendees at last week’s Tri-State Conservation Farming Expo in Montpelier.

Archuleta, a conservation agronomist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s East National Technology Center in Greensboro, N.C., spoke March 15 during the 10th annual expo. (He also spoke at the Wabash County Soil and Water Conservation District annual meeting in Urbana, Ind., the next day; see related article.)

Keeping soil healthy is important not only to raising crops but to the farm itself, he noted. “We have to look at how we can heal our soil, reduce our inputs and pass on the farm to the next generation,” Archuleta said.

“Our soils have been diminished or depleted for over 200 years. We can’t look at most of our issues from a water quality perspective, but from a soil health perspective. We also can’t assume no-till and conventional tillage soils are the same because they aren’t. You can’t compare the soil systems of the two.”

The water cycle isn’t complete until it goes into the soil aquifer, he said. “Have we created some of our own droughts because water doesn’t enter the soil? If water doesn’t enter the soil, you can’t get the nutrients to start cycling.”

When tilling is stopped, it becomes easier for water to enter the soil, he added. Farmers should also remember that less disturbance of the soil and more diversity are keys to keeping it healthy, Archuleta explained.

When a disk or tillage machine is run over soil, it opens the soil to bacteria. The glues that hold the soil together are destroyed in the process, he said, noting that healthy soil will not fall apart.

“When you till, you get the bacteria going, and that will eat the glues and the organic matter. No-till has more organic matter and holds the nutrients better,” he added.

Disking, plowing and fires all can be destructive to the soil, whereas plant roots and earthworms are two of the most powerful positive things for it, he explained. Manure, compost and crop residue are also good for soil health.
“The earthworm is the tilling machine you want to use,” he noted. “They’ll aerate the soil for you.”

Studies have shown that yields increase if farmers change a rotation of just one crop such as corn by adding legumes, alfalfa or sunflower. “Adding legumes to a corn rotation increased yields 15 percent to 17 percent for both crops.
Nature loves diversity. Nature doesn’t want to see the same roots all the time,” he said.

No-till systems need to be protected by a canopy of cover crops and residue, which prevents damage from raindrops, he explained, adding disturbances such as overgrazing increase the weed population. The more farmers understand their soil’s structure and how the ecosystem works, the better they can protect it, Archuleta stated.

“It’s about making the soil healthy once we learn how our soil system works. Is it possible we don’t realize what a healthy soil system will do?” he asked.