Plant Diversity
Soil Health Principle Descriptions by Jay Fuhrer, Menoken Farm Conservationist
Principle 3
Diversity is the elusive “Holy Grail” for ecosystem function, always easier to discuss than to achieve. The International Stratigraphic Chart states, the first land plants are estimated to have evolved approximately 458 million years ago, with the first microbial communities being much older at 3.48 billion years ago. In comparison, Homo sapiens are very recent. Plants and microbes have the advantage of biological time co-existing and supporting each other as one. The plant definition then becomes the plant tissue plus the microbes, which are both inside and outside the plant from the tallest growing point to the last root tip in the soil.
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We know plants contain thousands of metabolites, functioning through both a Primary Metabolism and a Specialized Metabolism, as referenced by Metabolomics in the Rhizosphere: Tapping into Belowground Chemical Communication Nicole M. van Dam1,2,3, and Harro J. Bouwmeester4, “Indeed, plants secrete a large array of primary and secondary plant metabolites into the rhizosphere to facilitate interactions with their biotic and abiotic environment.” Ecosystem processes would have been maximal; as highly diverse grasslands, forests, animals, and microbes were building our soils over geological time. Think of energy flow with sunlight always shining on a green plant, water cycles with both quality and quantity, mineral cycles which were managed by the plants and microbes, and community dynamics connecting and benefiting all life. However, European settlement brought agriculture which resulted in the polyculture perennial landscape being replaced by a limited-crop diversity annual landscape.
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Civilization Critical: by Darrin Qualman discusses early agriculture with a recycling circular symbol and today’s amendment driven agriculture with a linear symbol. We have a long-limited crop diversity history in the US, as humans strive for efficiency. In addition, typically we are better at extracting old sunshine carbon and nutrients from soil than we are rebuilding it with new sunshine carbon and nutrients. Combining no-till planting with crop diversity and cover crops moves the carbon needle. Reversing the status quo is never easy and does not guarantee instant success, but if our goal is to “farm forever” it becomes necessary to achieve a healthy landscape with nutrient rich crops versus short term economic gains at the resources expense. How do we start to bend today’s linear symbol into a more circular symbol? Expanding our crop rotations will more closely mimic the original plant communities. In addition, this would create windows of opportunity for cover crop integration, which in turn creates windows of opportunity for diverse livestock integration. Setting the stage for longer photosynthesis periods and ultimately more carbon available to the microbes.
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As a society we need to fully understand and value soil health, clean and plentiful water and air, animals on the landscape, nutrient rich food, and thriving rural communities to truly achieve a more diverse plant and animal landscape. Diverse crop rotations mimic our original perennial landscapes. They are important to the long-term sustainability of our soil resource and food security. Healthy soils are both a source and a sink for the carbon cycle. We’ve utilized the source part, now let’s add the sink part.
Featured Farm
Bacon Heights Farms Inc
Steve and David Bauer
Regan, North Dakota 58477
Bacon Heights Farms is located in north central Burleigh County near Regan, North Dakota. The farm is a logical Featured Farm choice as the name has become synonymous with Soil Health, and specifically the Principle of Plant Diversity. A recent diversity conversation with brothers, Steve and David Bauer began by going back a few generations. They explained how the farm evolved over time from dairy, then to hogs, and eventually cow/calf pairs, all on the livestock diversity side of the operation. David explained, “Our Dad, Glenn, grew up with both plant and animal diversity, he was an early adapter of sunflower and grain corn, while working closely with the local banker to construct one of the first hog confinement operations in North Dakota.” In addition to adopting the Soil Health Principle of Plant Diversity, Glenn was also an early adopter of the remaining 4 Soil Health Principles (Armor, Minimizing Soil Disturbance, Continual Live Plant, and Livestock Integration). While on the Plant Diversity side of the operation, the farm is growing several crops for 2024, including: pea, buckwheat, spring wheat, durham, adzuki bean, pinto bean, soybean, and corn. Additional crops from time-to-time include oat, malting barley, and sunflower; on any given year you can expect to see 6-8 crops growing.
Steve and David listed a few items to consider when expanding crop diversity. Such as, bin space requirements, avoiding conflicting planting and harvesting windows, allowing additional marketing time, season length considerations, and allowing time for cleaning trucks, augers, and combines between crops. What are some of the benefits of expanding Plant Diversity? Optimal use of labor and equipment, more marketing options, longer periods of sunlight harvest with improved soil health. Steve summarized by saying, “It looks like Nature at work with the plants healing the land, cycling deep nutrients, and developing at their own rate”. Diversity has allowed them to remove insecticides, fungicides are addressed only as needed and used sparingly, while lower herbicide and fertilizer usage levels have also benefited. The farm eliminated tillage 40+ years ago, first by moving into direct seeding and the last 20 years with a no-till planting system. Multi specie cover crops were added into the crop rotation in 2007. Some of the commonly used covers include: camelina, buckwheat, oat, radish, pea, cereal rye, and turnip. Cover crops have also allowed the Planting Green concept to be applied, supplying additional soil carbon to low carbon crops such as soybean, pinto bean, and buckwheat, while also extending photosynthesis prior to corn.
How about plant diversity on the livestock side of the operation? David, who serves on the board of the Burleigh County Soil Conservation District, said, “We use a multi paddock system with high rest and recovery time, along with season of use changes, enhancing the native rangeland wildflowers, vetches, and numerous grasses such as Big Bluestem. Large cattle numbers for short time periods encourage grassland plant diversity, and overall plant biomass. Allowing grass banking for late fall/early winter grazing when weather allows. Hayland fields are usually hayed once, then grazed later, and during the winter they are fed on to add soil carbon, build soil aggregates, and heal past erosion impacts.”
Going forward, what does the future look like? The conservation ethic transferred from Glenn to sons Steve and David will continue. The brothers are in agreement to work toward keeping desiccants out of the food chain, finding an acceptable amount of crop production weed pressure, and treating all crops as food crops whether they go directly or indirectly into the food production system.
