Soil organisms help ranchers

Intense, low duration grazing builds soil vitality, and increases soil organic matter.

Formulaically, the process described by Manske is very simple; what happens as a result is not.

A rancher chooses three pastures on which to graze the cattle. Starting in the first pasture, the cattle graze for 15 days, and then move on to the next pasture. This is repeated and the cattle find themselves in the third pasture.

Once the cattle leave the first pasture, the soil organisms go to work, converting the organic nitrogen into mineral nitrogen and feeding the plants, building their crude protein.

“Just by changing the management from focusing on dry matter poundage to managing those soil organisms, you can increase the productivity of your land,” Manske said. (Source)

Well observed.

Rhizosperic soil can get awfully puny under long duration grazing. Topsoil pales and topsoil depth is lost, but not to sediment discharge or wind erosion. The in-situ transformation of topsoil to not-topsoil results in the discharge of soil carbon to the atmosphere. The good news is that, unlike wind erosion, water erosion, sheet erosion, or gully erosion erosion, this yet-to-be-named variant of topsoil erosion is reversible.

Agrichar trials in NSW

News and commentary on agrichar is flowing steadily this spring, first with the reporting on the 1st annual Agrichar Conference, and now with the reporting on initial agrichar trials by the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI). Particularly encouraging is that the sophistication of the comments continues on the increase.

Snippets from ABC' Discovery channel ...

Recent greenhouse trials found soils mixed with the charred waste, called agrichar or biochar, were more attractive to worms and helpful microbes.

Agrichars trialled by NSW DPI include those from poultry litter, cattle feedlot waste as well as municipal green waste and paper mill sludge. Each agrichar has its own characteristics and interacts differently with different soil types.

Some agrichars raise soil pH at about one-third the rate of lime, raise calcium and reduce aluminium toxicity.

Kimber said more research needs to be done on working out which agrichars are best for which soils and on the impact of any contamination in biomass.

... reinforce the need for local pyrolysis pilot projects. The pyrolysis pilot hurdle is necessary where widespread agrichar use is the goal. Clean air concerns combines with the limited supply of local expertise and experience needed to achieve the low-temperature pyrolysis ideal for producing agrichar.

I have submitted comments emphasizing the need for pilot agrichar projects to our State's climate change folks.

(AP image source)

MPOG - Microbial Prospection for Oil and Gas

Microbial Prospectation looks for anomolies in microbial populations. The presence of various groups of methane-, propane- and butane-oxidizing micro-organisms can reliably differentiate between prospective and non-prospective areas, as well as between oil and gas reservoirs. The result of many years of exerience, the success rate exceeds 90%. This stand-alone approach is inexpensive, probably benefiting from recent computational improvements in characterizing microbial genetic characteristics. Makes you wonder what other benefits will accrue from these types of advances.

Read more at Microbial Prospection and Recovery for Oil and Gas

Tip from: OilNetCom Blog

Tech Tags: soil microbiology science

Thoughts on Peter Drucker

Consulting soil scientists generally work in separation from academia. This post pulled hard on my sense of science-business identity. On the one hand, we at SSSA and NSCSS do hold closely to Peter Drucker's position that the knowledge worker gains access to work, job and social position through formal education. Qualifying for voting membership and leadership in either soil science society requires formal education. As it should. Yet, in common with the poster, we in soil science consulting achieve and maintain our success almost entirely through informal means.

Over 10 years ago in 1994 Peter Drucker gave a lecture at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government about knowledge workers.

He starts by saying that “in the first place, the knowledge worker gains access to work, job and social position through formal education” and continues to explain the importance of formal education for becoming a knowledge worker. He emphasizes the role of formal schooling as the central gravity for new knowledge workers and that learning knowledge work cannot be achieved through apprenticeship or any other method than formal education.

I really appreciate much of the ideas presented by Mr. Drucker. He has influenced much of my own thinking, but this is something I can hardly agree on nowadays. I’m a glitch in his system, because I have achieved my social position and access to work mainly through informal means. I find it very hard to achieve my current social position through any other means than my own informal knowledge working practices. A lot of advanced level knowledge workers I know and appreciate work systematically with knowledge in informal settings.

He continues: “Increasingly, an educated person, will be someone who has learned how to learn, and throughout his or her lifetime continues to learn, especially in and out of formal education.“

Spot on. In my opinion, it’s not only the role of formal education that will be central to continuous learning after preliminary education, but rather systematic working practices in networks of knowledge: informal or formal.

In formal education we still focus much of our time on learning theories without proper application. Drucker says that “in the knowledge society, knowledge basically exists only in application” and that “knowledge in application is effective only when it is specialized“. While formal education mainly teaches us to be generalists by just requiring us to pass a certain designated level of “good enough”, in knowledge society leadership will concentrate around specialists who have acquired additional specialized skills that have importance in application. The only way to acquire those skills is to have the passion for learning and to deeply explore new territories with other people

I agree thoroughly with this last point. Soil science consultants need to become aware of the issues surrounding open access (OA) to scientific knowledge. Our effectiveness and our growth depend on it. In closing, I think we should recognize the considerable advances made (and continuing) at the SSSAJ to balance the benefits of OA with the need for revenue sufficient to support publishing.

URL: OA update to Peter Drucker
[from: Open Access News]

Tech Tags: soil science professional business knowledge opinion

Dilution is the solution to pollution

Land treatment of industrial waste water can save energy. Mechanical aeration for treatment demands large quantities of electrical power. In land treatment, this is replaced by passive aeration. The energy cost reduction can be well in excess of the payments needed to purchase the land. A disadvantage of land application of waste waste is that it can contribute to ground water salinity.
Crops and soil treatment do little to remove mineral salinity from applied waters. How much salinity in ground water is too much? Salinity doesn't threaten health as much as it taints taste. This creates a dilemma. Environmental regulators are challenged to defend enforcement limits based on aesthetics with the same vigor as criteria based on human health. They are particularly challenged when the industries contributing to groundwater salinity are valued employers contributing to rural economies. But defend water quality standards they must.
Salt load in land applied waste water is considered by many to be the single most important challenge facing the industries which use land application to treat waste water. Particularly sensitive to this issue are briners, cheese processors and some electronics manufacturers. Among waste water spray field management advisers the consensus is that saline waste water spray field operations should avoid sites where the discharge can't be diluted by substantial rainfall and/or groundwater flux. In short, dilution is the only practical solution when it comes to salts in waste water. If the operation is located in an area that does not enjoy the benefits of natural dilution, the brine portion of the waste water stream can be segregated and transported to an area that does. Not an easy task but not unprecedented. A municipal waste water treatment plant discharging to a substantial body of water is a logical choice for receiving the brine.
These comments are prompted by a news article today in the Sacramento Bee (free registration required): Hilmar faces more pollution rules. Cheese factory agrees to give water quality board more authority.
[follow-up comment from Chris Bowman, Sac-Bee: The brine collected from the reverse osmosis filters is hauled to an East Bay MUD treatment plant.]

Tech Tags: Environment news article government regulation permit

Precise common sense

Precision ag implies computer mapped lab data and GPS controlled field equipment. Higher yields, less flying blind and easier farming. The reality is that the expense of data collection, analysis and interpretation can quickly wipeout any added value. Reading this article about variable rate management of cotton, it struck me that common sense and curiosity are the missing ingredients. Elton Robinson with Delta Press reports on cotton producer Kenneth Hood, Mississippi, who attributes his success with variable rate agriculture to, among other things, reliance on aerial photo interpretation, an approach not typical of precision agriculture. Hood says that the “... advantage to imagery is that very little data collection is required, according to Hood, “which is unlike most precision agriculture practices.” Put this experience together with the recent cryptic news on the lukewarm record of precision agriculture in Germany, which I touched on earlier, and what do you get? My sense is that Kenneth Hood is going to have lots of company.

Tech Tags: opinion farm news soil sample data lab analysis precision_agriculture technology maps success edaphology science