In this episode we talk with Joel Williams about how growers can start weaning off costly chemical inputs, rules of thumb for seed treatments and foliar sprays, why he likes tweaks and incremental improvements, the growing scientific evidence behind regenerative farming practices and more!

Joel Williams is an independent plant and soil health educator based in Canada, working on soil management, plant nutrition and integrated approaches of sustainable food production. Joel is interested in designing farming systems that focus on managing soil biology along with crop and soil nutrition to optimise plant immunity and soil function.

At Soils for Life we’ve recently launched a major project focused on cropping systems, and we thought Joel would be the perfect person to talk about why and how growers are transitioning to a more regenerative, resilient approach to cropping.

Find out more about the project via soilsforlife.org.au/cropping-resilience/.

If you have any feedback or questions about this podcast, or suggestions of topics or people you’d like us to include in future episodes, please reach out on social media or via [email protected].

Thanks to Joel Williams for chatting with us! This episode was hosted by Eli Court, produced by Chris Wieffering and edited by Michelle Watts

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We’ve all heard the saying “You are what you eat”. But, as we hear in this episode, it really should go “You are what you eat, and the soil it grows in.”

Over half of our adult population are considered to be malnourished, and this is in part due to a decline in the nutrient density of our food. As the world’s population grows and remaining arable land decreases, growing healthier, nutrient dense food might just be a part of the answer to improving human health outcomes.

In this episode we talk with two farmers and two researchers about the question: ‘Is soil the key to better human health?’.

What we find is a complex tangle of connections between soil, plants, animals, and humans that science is only just beginning to understand.

Thank to our wonderful guests:
Matthew Evans
Farmer, chef and food writer and the author of ‘Soil: The incredible story of what keeps the earth, and us, healthy”
Courtney Young
Co-owner at Woodstock Flour and project manager at Soils for Life
Robyn Alders
Honorary professor with the Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University
Dr Stephan van Vliet
Assistant professor of nutrition at the Center for Human Nutrition Studies at Utah State University He holds a PhD in Kinesiology and Community Health. Dr. van Vliet also holds a Masters in Nutrition Science.

Additional research links
A database of chemical compounds found in foods by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, https://foodb.ca/

Hosted by Susannah Kable from the Grow Love Project and James Diack from Soils for Life. This Podcast has been produced by Grow Love Project in collaboration with Soils for Life.

If you have any feedback or questions about this podcast, or suggestions of topics or people you’d like us to include in future episodes, please reach out on social media or via [email protected]. More at www.soilsforlife.org.au/podcast

0:00 Intro
1:04 A farmer growing grain with more flavour
3:25 These days our food has less nutrients
5:05 A malnourished nation
6:00 Quantity over quality
7:44 Discovering micronutrients
10:50 Metabolites: Diverse pastures and animal health
15:55 Nutritional Dark Matter: What we don't know
17:20 Best farming practices for nutrition
23:20 Diversity is key
24:50 Healthy soil, more flavour?
28:19 One Health, it's all connected
29:50 We need good data to drive policy
31:48 How do we measure micronutrients?
32:40 Choosing foods based on nutrients
35:55 What do farmers need to change practices?
39:39 Circular economics: Driving change
40:36 Caring for communities
41:25 Flavour is joy
#regenerativefarming #regenerative #soil #nutrition

Participants in the Soil Health Challenge share their results with Soils for Life agroecologist Sarah Fea and David Hardwick from Soil Land Food.

Find out more about the Soil Health Challenge at soilsforlife.org.au/soil-health-challenge.

You can:
1. Join the Soil Health Challenge here: https://soilsforlife.org.au/soil-health-challenge/
2. Join the Facebook group to discuss your results!
3. Share the challenge with farmer's you think would be interested

0:00 Introduction and experiences of the Challenge
9:20 Explaining what soil structure is
10:38 The soil infiltration test
12:17 How dry or wet conditions, and ground cover affect infiltration testing
15:52 What is ‘aggregate stability’?
18:15 How to interpret aggregate stability: Slaking and dispersion
21:50 Participants sharing results, Q&A
22:15 Why is aggregate stability worse at depth?
28:10 Why were my results in remnant scrub so ‘bad’ compared to cleared paddocks?
34:45 Why are my infiltration rates faster in the first 6 minutes than the second 6 minutes?
38:04 How can I diagnose compaction v hydrophobic soils from the results?
49:00 How and when can a penetrometer be used to help diagnose compaction?
55:05 Soil organism invertebrate diversity
1:01:43 Wrap up the webinar

We recently caught up with Sam Vincent, who has since taken over the family farm, continuing the cattle enterprise and introducing a direct-to-market fresh fig enterprise serving Canberra’s high end restaurants. He’s written a book about his journey, called My Father and Other Animals.

Our conversation covered a whole range of interesting ground. We talked about his fascinating dad, a guy who started out as an free market economist public servant, and brought this mindset to farming (“regenerative agriculture is a free lunch”). We also talked about his horticulture enterprise and his direct marketing of figs to Canberra restaurants, his decision making around livestock during dry periods, and his engagement with the Traditional Owners of the land on which he farms.

If you have any feedback or questions about this podcast, or suggestions of topics or people you’d like us to include in future episodes, please reach out on social media or via [email protected].

Thank you to Sam Vincent for sharing his story and wisdom. Hosted by Eli Court from Soils for Life. This podcast has been produced by Soils for Life, and edited by Michelle Watts.

#regenerativefarming #soilsforlife #soil #health

0:00 About Sam and his book
0:50 Coming back to the family farm
2:17 What's your book about?
3:08 A love letter to my dad
5:18 The economist brain
8:05 Sam's fig enterprise
13:10 Challenging decisions on the farm
16:05 Indigenous history on the farm
23:00 The disconnect between urban and rural
24:42 It's not what you're farming, it's how

How to do the five easy soil health assessments.

David Hardwick from Soil Land Food walks us through how to do the five assessments laid out in the Soil Health Challenge. James Diack and Courtney Young from Soils for Life also give us more information about the challenge.

You can:
1. Join the Soil Health Challenge here: https://soilsforlife.org.au/soil-health-challenge/
2. Join the Facebook group to discuss your results!
3. Share the challenge with farmer's you think would be interested

If you’re a long-time listener to this podcast, you’ll be used to our in-depth episodes co-hosted by Grow Love Project’s Susie Kable and Soils for Life’s James Diack. We’re continuing to make these episodes, but from time-to-time we’ll be bringing you shorter interviews with farmers doing interesting things to regenerate soils and landscapes. This is the first of these interviews, with actress-turned-farmer Rachel Ward and farm manager Mick Green.

Mick and Rachel jointly manage a farm in the Nambucca Valley on the NSW mid-north coast. As newbies to regenerative farming, they decided to make the most of Rachel’s lifetime of experience with film making to produce a documentary about their journey. That documentary – called Rachel’s Farm – is out now on limited release.

This is a broad ranging conversation about getting started in a new approach to farming, working as a team, learning from friends and neighbours, and dealing with pests and extreme weather. Most of all, we enjoyed hearing about Mick and Rachel’s incredibly humble and curious mindset – always questioning, never afraid to admit to a mistake and learn from it. We hope you enjoy listening to this conversation. And just a note, you’ll hear some references to ‘Normy’ in this podcast – Normy worked with Mick and Rachel during the early days of their journey, and was the ideas man and inspiration behind many of their shifts.

If you have any feedback or questions about this podcast, or suggestions of topics or people you’d like us to include in future episodes, please reach out on social media or via [email protected].

Thank you to Rachel Ward and Mick Green for sharing their story and their wisdom. Hosted by Eli Court from Soils for Life. This podcast has been produced by Soils for Life, and edited by Michelle Watts.

#soilsforlife #regenerativeagriculture #rachelward #mickgreen #farming #australia #biodiversity #biologicalfarming #soilhealth

Building cropping resilience through diversity.

In this episode we hear from croppers who are growing multispecies crops as a way of building soil health and improving diversity. We discover why and how these farmers are moving from growing monocultures to establishing polycultures.

Find out more about how croppers around Australia are regenerating soil and landscape health by reading Soils for Life’s new cropping case studies.

www.soilsforlife.org.au

Thank you to all our guests
Rob and Judi Hetherington - Walma
Martin Williams - Nyngan Seed Graders
Grant Sims - Down Under Covers

Hosted by Susannah Kable from the Grow Love Project and James Diack from Soils for Life

This Podcast has been produced by Grow Love Project in collaboration with Soils for Life. This project is supported through funding from the Australian Government’s Smart Farms Program

www.soilsforlife.org.au/podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast...
https://open.spotify.com/show/1IWTdcQ...

00:00

#regenerativeagriculture #regen #cropping #ecological #biologicalfarming #biodiversity #regenerative #podcast #soilsforlife

Meet Russell Young of Young Seeds. Russell’s story of farming offers insights into flood prone landscapes like the Condamine River region, and highlights some of the challenges for farmers who have been affected by unpredictable and extreme weather conditions in recent years. While still in the early days of practice change, Russell has observed promising changes to how the soil is behaving, as well as increased worm activity, especially in his multispecies paddocks. These results have given Russell a lot of confidence.

00:00 Introduction

Read more about the Russell's journey at www.soilsforlife.org.au/young-seeds

#regenerativeagriculture #soilsforlife #casestudy #biodiversity #regenerative #cropping #australianfarming

Bruce Maynard is a fourth generation farmer at Willydah, with his wife Roz, and children Liam, Ella and Hannah, near Narromine, NSW, Australia. Together they run a mixed cropping and grazing enterprise.

Bruce grew up farming with his parents. He remembers hearing stories about earlier farmers in their region stopping the machinery mid-field as they were ‘just dragging too many worms’. He always had an appreciation of nature and an inquiring and creative mind. Through a strong sense of curiosity and a bit of luck in his early farming years, Bruce was able to change the trajectory of his family farm, and paradigms of cropping.

In this video, Bruce introduces his main practices of No-Kill Cropping, effective grazing, and tree and shrub planting.

No-Kill Cropping:
No-Kill Cropping ‘sits out on a completely different branch from all other cropping branches and methods’, explains Bruce. Since he developed No-Kill Cropping in 1995, Bruce has continued to implement it across his farm on native grasslands, based on five principles, including: sow when top soil is dry; use coulter-type sewing; no herbicides or pesticides; no fertilsers, and effective grazing.

Effective grazing:
According to Bruce, there are increasing levels of stock management, which progressively maximise the complementarity of animals and landscape. To start, Stress Free Stockmanship is a way to move stock across the landscape which ‘reinforces their ability to recover from stressors’. Building on this, Self-Herding is a way to allow animals to move across the landscape, without infrastructure, based on the anticipation of rewards. The increased ability for animals to self-select their diet based on their needs, has the added benefit of animals eating a greater variety of plants in the landscape (including less desirable plants).

Tree and shrub planting:
Supporting his goals for increasing the complexity and biodiversity of above and below-ground life on this property, Bruce has also planted hundreds of thousands of trees and shrubs.


0:00 Introduction

Read more on Bruce's case study at www.soilsforlife.org.au/willydah

#regenerativeagriculture #brucemaynard #soilsforlife #casestudy #biodiversity #regenerative #cropping #australianfarming

Meet Josh and Peri McIntosh who manage Border Park Organics. Farming at Border Park has thrown many challenges their way, but Josh and Peri are resourceful people, guided by shared values, a strong sense of community and a can-do approach to life. While Josh and Peri value the legacy they inherited and see great benefits in organic farming, the choices they have made since taking over the farm reflect a shift in thinking toward a systems health and systems management approach. The changes and their observations of impact have contributed to a sense of renewed hope for the future.

0:00 Introduction

Read more about the McIntoshs' journey at www.soilsforlife.org.au/border-park-organics

#regenerativeagriculture #soilsforlife #casestudy #biodiversity #regenerative #cropping #australianfarming

Guided by the principle, ‘You can’t manage what you don’t measure’, Rob Hetherington took his first soil sample in the 1980s. This was when he began managing the family farm, in the Lakes district of the south-eastern wheatbelt, Western Australia. Since then, he has collected hundreds of samples, which help him achieve his goal of farming “deeper” to improve the health of the soil and plants, rather than expanding.

00:00

Read more on the Hetherington's case study at www.soilsforlife.org.au/walma

#regenerativeagriculture #soilsforlife #casestudy #biodiversity #regenerative #cropping #australianfarming #soilhealth

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The South Australia Paddock Labs project
Over the last several decades Australian crop growers have been increasingly challenged by rising temperatures and input costs, increasing rainfall variability, and declining soil health. Improving soil health is widely recognised as a key mechanism to address these challenges, not least for improving drought resilience. Healthy, functioning soils store water by acting as a sponge. Innovative Australian croppers have been leading the way to build healthy soils for drought resilience. In this ‘Paddock Labs for Drought Resilience’ project (2021-2022), we supported experimentation with, and adoption of, drought resilient cropping practices in South Australia.

This episode: Sap analysis
Sap testing is an emerging practice, where farmers are measuring the sap in plants for indicators of current nutrition, such as total sugars, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, ammonium, nitrogen, etc. Two farms implemented a sap analysis program, with four demonstration sites on Eyre Peninsula also having some exploratory analyses conducted. Most of the participants used visual tests to determine the health of the crops and soil. As part of the Paddock Labs project, Soils for Life hosted a webinar on sap testing with Mark Tupman, a horticulturalist from Productive Ecology. Because sap testing is quite technical, expert advice is often recommended.

More information
This project is supported by Soils for Life, through funding from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund. To learn more about the South Australia Paddock Labs here: https://soilsforlife.org.au/south-australia-paddock-labs/ Contact us at https://soilsforlife.org.au/ for any further information.

0:00 Introduction & instructions
1:15 Introduction to sap testing
1:58 Mark Tupman explains sap test results
2:15 Nutrient mobility in plants
3:23 Reading: Total sugars
4:34 Reading: pH levels
5:20 Reading: EC - Electrical conductivity
6:04 Question: What EC levels would indicate water stress?
6:42 Reading: Potassium
7:35 Reading: Calcium
8:40 Nutrient description chart
11:36 Soils in South Australia
14:50 Protein absorption and Nitrates (N)
16:25 Ammonium
17:38 Improve conversion to Nitrogen
18:17 Increasing photosynthesis for conversion
18:56 Question: Timeframe of Ammonium conversion
20:13 Calcium and Magnesium issues
24:53 Phosphorus levels and EC
31:18 Not all soil treatments affect plants
32:09 Question: Nitrate discrepancy
34:32 Is Sodium affecting Nitrate conversion?
36:53 Any other questions?
37:18 Question: Does EC affect all other nutrient access?
38:42 Question: Can you use soil biology to balance nutrients?
41:10 Question: Does Manganese and Iron stimulate photosynthesis?
43:07 Question: What is the role of Silica?
45:15 Question: What is the role of Sulphur?
45:52 Question: Does improving soil health increase profits?
47:30 Inputs don't necessarily show up in sap tests
48:09 Increased plant resilience again pests
49:05 Sap analysis efficacy
50:54 Sap levels in relation to soil type and condition
58:34 Benefits of seed coatings
1:00:21 Formulating effective foliar sprays
1:05:15 Thank you and acknowledgements





#soilsforlife #paddocklabs #southaustralia #cropgrowers #soilmentorapp #nicolemasters #soilmonitoring

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The South Australia Paddock Labs project
Over the last several decades Australian crop growers have been increasingly challenged by rising temperatures and input costs, increasing rainfall variability, and declining soil health. Improving soil health is widely recognised as a key mechanism to address these challenges, not least for improving drought resilience. Healthy, functioning soils store water by acting as a sponge. Innovative Australian croppers have been leading the way to build healthy soils for drought resilience. In this ‘Paddock Labs for Drought Resilience’ project (2021-2022), we supported experimentation with, and adoption of, drought resilient cropping practices in South Australia.

This episode: Trials with alternative fertilisers
Towards the end of the Paddock Labs process, we hosted a peer learning session, where two focus farmers shared their experiences and lessons with alternative fertilisers. Tom Robinson shares and answers other farmers’ questions about his experiments with summer crops and grazing, seed coatings, sap testing and foliars, and crop nutrition management. He also shares a video of his set up for coating his seeds with Johnson Su fertiliser and then transferring to the truck.David Foster shares the design and results of his replicated trials with deeping ripping, companion planting with alternative fertilisers, such as manures, and what he calls synergy planting. He talks about the benefits of sowing wheat and beans and sweet corn and beans together, including a ‘doubling of root mass’ and nitrogen deficiencies where the beans weren’t included.

More information
This project is supported by Soils for Life, through funding from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund. To learn more about the South Australia Paddock Labs here: https://soilsforlife.org.au/south-australia-paddock-labs/ Contact us at https://soilsforlife.org.au/ for any further information.

Chapters
0:00 Introduction and instructions
1:03 Introduction to farmer Tom Robinson
1:35 Tom Robinson - Enterprises and practices
4:40 Tom Robinson - Rainfall
5:37 Tom Robonson - Johnson Su compost
7:23 Question: What is the timeline for creating compost tea?
8:16 Question: How do you keep the compost tea cool?
12:06 Question: Do you roller crimp your paddocks?
14:03 Question: What inputs do you use in your paddocks?
15:15 Nitrogen sampling and tracking
18:18 Sap testing
19:32 Introduction to David Foster & David Davenport
20:12 Trial: Beans as a soil amendment for wheat
21:19 Results of trial
23:17 Yield data
25:48 Isolated trails with beans and corn
27:00 Results and findings: Fungal associations
27:46 Replicated trials for 2022
29:58 Results: Better root mass & penetration, more earthworms
34:38 Input costs and commercial fertiliser
36:13 Question: Could you seed two or more crops at the same time at different depths?
39:03 Thanks and acknowledgements

#soilsforlife #paddocklabs #southaustralia #cropgrowers #soilmentorapp #nicolemasters #soilmonitoring

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The South Australia Paddock Labs project
Over the last several decades Australian crop growers have been increasingly challenged by rising temperatures and input costs, increasing rainfall variability, and declining soil health. Improving soil health is widely recognised as a key mechanism to address these challenges, not least for improving drought resilience. Healthy, functioning soils store water by acting as a sponge. Innovative Australian croppers have been leading the way to build healthy soils for drought resilience. In this ‘Paddock Labs for Drought Resilience’ project (2021-2022), we supported experimentation with, and adoption of, drought resilient cropping practices in South Australia.

This episode: Making practical in-field observations
In addition to learning drought resilient practices, the South Australia Paddock Lab crop growers want to be able to monitor the impact for themselves. Specifically, the Paddock Lab participants wanted to know how different practices will affect their long-term resilience, profits and improve their bottom line. The participants believed that farmers should pay more attention to their observations and try to understand causes sooner rather than later. Becoming versed in their own landscape observations means crop growers can make a more informed assessment of advice and understand the long-term financial impact of the management decisions.To support farmers in developing their own observations of changes over time – or soil and landscape health observations – the project provided each participant with access to and training on the Soilmentor app. Soilmentor is a phone-based tool that helps farmers easily record and monitor some key indicators or soil health on their farms. This data can be compared with financial data over time. We also ran this webinar with Nicole Masters, an internationally respected agroecologist and one of the developers of the Soilmentor app. The first part of the webinar features a demonstration of Soilmentor. In the second part of the webinar, croppers share photos of how their plants were responding to the practices, and Nicole and the peer group help interpret and provide practical insights.

More information
This project is supported by Soils for Life, through funding from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund. To learn more about the South Australia Paddock Labs here: https://soilsforlife.org.au/south-australia-paddock-labs/ Contact us at https://soilsforlife.org.au/ for any further information.

0:00 Introduction and instructions
0:54 Introduction to Soilmentor App
1:23 Nicole Masters
2:17 The Soilmentor App
2:54 Vidacycle - Regen indicators
3:30 Rooting depth
4:15 Soilmentor App demonstration
9:10 Question: How do you take the soil sample?
10:06 Soilmentor App - Syncing
11:01 Soilmentor online
11:28 The Regen dashboard demonstration
15:42 Indicators: Nodulation of legumes
17:54 Indicators: Rhizosheaths
19:56 Indicators: Slake test
21:35 Nicole's feedback on farmer's samples
22:02 Terry Young's observations
23:44 Carbon stocks
24:06 Rooting depth
24:42 Rhizosheaths
25:41 Brix test
26:33 Trace elements
29:22 The role of Calcium
30:52 Nodulation
30:30 Renae's observations
34:52 Slaking test
36:06 Phosphorus
38:21 Regen indicators
39:35 Stunted root systems
39:48 Saprotrophic fungi
41:14 Limestone soils that are Calcium deficient
42:49 Impact of fungicide on soil fungi
43:23 How to approach fungal issues
44:37 Scott Mickan's observations
44:52 Soil hardpan
45:20 Weeds
46:16 Inoculating legumes
47:09 Nodulation
49:14 Addressing the hardpan & compaction
59:37 Addressing aphids with worm extract tea and molasses
1:00:38 Thank you and acknowledgements


#soilsforlife #paddocklabs #southaustralia #cropgrowers #soilmentorapp #nicolemasters #soilmonitoring

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The health of their self-replacing stock is a priority for the Haggertys. They chose a self-replacing process to gain the benefits of a positive epigenetic cycle emerging between the sheep, diverse plants, landscape and soil.

As Di says, the genetic diversity of the soils and plants improves the sheep’s ability to select foods necessary for their health and a healthy gut microbiome. In other words, ‘diverse pastures equal healthy sheep.’ Di and Ian haven’t had to mules or drench the sheep in over 20 years.

Important in their strategy for maximising sheep health through Natural Intelligence Farming is allowing for the sheep to determine what they need. Di shared a story about how she placed 400 ewes in a lush multispecies paddock for a lambing period, thinking this paddock looked most desirable to support their nutritional needs.

However, she left the gate open to the recently regenerated native grains paddock. All 400 ewes chose the native grains paddock to birth, and not a single lamb was lost. ‘You can tell how satisfied the sheep are by how much they sleep during the day’, says Di, ‘and these ewes were resting most of the day.’

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