Regenerative cropping builds soil carbon
With the threat of climate change, in other words, rainfall variability, a large percentage of farmers are finding they need to change the way they think. Changing thinking is a cycle of questioning, observing and taking action.
When asked what the one thing is they would like to achieve, farmers say, ‘leave our soil and environment in a better state than it is now for future generations’.
YLAD Living Soils are helping farmers achieve that dream. Rhonda Daly, co-founder and owner of YLAD Living Soils sees regenerative farming as a movement. “It is like an umbrella for many innovative practices to sit, attracting many types of farmers sharing one goal, to build soil and environmental health,” said Rhonda.
Build soil carbon
YLAD Living Soils is gaining a reputation as a leader in agronomic advice for farmers transitioning from
conventional to regenerative farming; in particular, farmers still wanting to practice cropping.
The company researched how plants can most efficiently take up nutrients and water, build soil carbon and achieve high yields with less pest and diseases.
Regenerative cropping was born, where farmers could reduce synthetic fertilisers, particularly nitrogen, experience less pest and disease pressure and build soil carbon.
With soil compaction being one of the biggest drawbacks for farmers to make this transition, YLAD Living Soils has created humus-based programmes that correct mineral imbalances and introduce microbial diversity, in particular, glomalin, a sticky substance secreted by threadlike fungal structures called hyphae that funnel nutrients and water to plant.
One very popular product in the YLAD Living Soils’ ‘regenerative cropping’ programme is a down- the- tube fertiliser known as Germinate Plus - a microbe- friendly, carbon-based granular blend supplying soluble and slowrelease nutrients, including trace minerals for long season supply.
Healthy root systems
Germinate Plus produces roots that look like ‘dreadlocks’, with microbial glues coating the root to create a healthy rhizosphere.
Roots are the digestive system of the plant and a healthy root system determines the microbiology that lives around the roots, where beneficial microbes will outcompete pathogens, meaning fewer disease issues.
YLAD Living Soils identifies the reason why roots look ‘naked’ and are helping farmers build healthier roots and plants. Only then will crops utilise inputs more effectively for greater yield and quality.
To increase fungal diversity around the root zone, YLAD Living Soils inoculates Nutri-Life Platform®, supplying four main strains of mycorrhizal fungi responsible for the creation of glomalin, a source of stable carbon that binds soil particles together and improves soil quality.
Mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) burrow into the emerging root and create a network of fine hyphal strands in the soil providing a tenfold (1,000 per cent) increase in root surface area.
Building drought resistance
When soil lacks microbiology and the ability to recycle and supply nutrients to the plant, the plant then becomes very dependent on the farmer ‘feeding’ water- soluble nitrogen and phosphorus which can lock-up, leach or evaporate.
When this oversupply of nitrogen and phosphorus occurs, the microbiology cannot perform their role of fixing nitrogen (for free), solubilising phosphorus and staving off disease organisms.
Nitrogen seems to be a nutrient that farmers rely on most, believing that only when they supply large amounts of soluble N will they obtain high yields and quality.
Over the past 17 years, this has been proven incorrect showing that there are alternatives to achieving similar or better results. These alternatives not only supply shortterm gains but contribute to long- term benefits, such as improved soil structure, organic carbon increases and meeting environmental parameters.
The aim of adopting ‘regenerative cropping’ is to build the soil to ensure efficient production, resilience against drought and a promise to regenerate degraded soils. ☐