{"id":25035,"date":"2015-09-17T11:36:41","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T16:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=25035"},"modified":"2015-09-17T11:36:41","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T16:36:41","slug":"farmers-school-themselves-on-soil-health-to-revive-oklahomas-dying-dirt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2015\/09\/17\/farmers-school-themselves-on-soil-health-to-revive-oklahomas-dying-dirt\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmers School Themselves on Soil Health to Revive Oklahoma&#8217;s Dying Dirt"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_25052\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25052\" alt=\"Several Oklahoma farmers wonder through a field of broad-leafed cover crops during a state Conservation Commission workshop in Dewey County in western Oklahoma. \" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/09\/PHOTO-9-17-SoilHealth1-e1442503838772.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/09\/PHOTO-9-17-SoilHealth1-e1442503838772.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/09\/PHOTO-9-17-SoilHealth1-e1442503838772-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/09\/PHOTO-9-17-SoilHealth1-e1442503838772-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/09\/PHOTO-9-17-SoilHealth1-e1442503838772-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Several Oklahoma farmers wonder through a field of broad-leafed cover crops during a state Conservation Commission workshop in Dewey County in western Oklahoma.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>Generations of tilling and planting on the same land have left Oklahoma\u2019s soil in poor shape. And if farmers don\u2019t change the way they grow crops, feeding the future won\u2019t be easy.\u00a0As Slapout, Okla., farmer Jordan Shearer puts it: \u201cWe\u2019re creating a desert environment by plowing the damn ground.&#8221;<\/p><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/224298015&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=false\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p><p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>Taking a toll<\/h3><p>More than 800 million tons of topsoil blew away in a single year <a title=\"PBSlink\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/kenburns\/dustbowl\/legacy\/\" target=\"_blank\">during the Dust Bowl<\/a>. In response, farmers planted trees, irrigated crops and changed plowing techniques\u00a0to prevent another Dust Bowl. \u00a0But they kept plowing, planting wheat, tilling again, and planting more wheat in the same spot \u2014 a cycle known as<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><a title=\"WikipediaLink\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Monocropping\" target=\"_blank\">conventional mono-cropping<\/a>.<\/p><p>Ray Archuleta is an agronomist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture&#8217;s Natural Resource Conservation Service. Part of what he does for a living is dig holes to study soil health across the country.<\/p><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9uMPuF5oCPA\" height=\"349\" width=\"620\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p><p>\u201cTillage is an intrusive tool,\u201d Archuleta says. \u201cTo me it\u2019s a national crisis. When you drive through the whole country, it\u2019s very sad to see that our land is very, very diminished.\u201d<\/p><p>Tilling excites bacteria that eat the organic matter in the soil plants thrive on, which destroys root and worm pathways that allow moisture to penetrate the ground, he says. Over time, the soil dies, and only more land \u2014 and more fertilizer \u2014 keep crops growing.<\/p>\n<h3>Getting back to nature<\/h3><p>The solution is to stop tilling and rotate wheat with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nrcs.usda.gov\/wps\/portal\/nrcs\/detail\/national\/climatechange\/?cid=stelprdb1077238\">cover crops<\/a> \u2014 assortments of plants that cover the field and restore organic matter into the soil when they die. Think of it as large-scale composting. Ray Archuleta calls it farming in nature\u2019s image.<\/p><p>\u201cIt\u2019s about mimicking nature and understanding the ecology,\u201d Archuleta says. \u201cIt\u2019s no-till with<i> <\/i>the covers, with the animals. It\u2019s all of it as a system.\u201d<\/p><p>Shearer, the Slapout farmer who also works for the Oklahoma Association of Conservation Districts \u2014 which promotes modern farming practices that preserve soil health \u2014 says moving away from that natural system is killing Oklahoma\u2019s once-fertile soil.<\/p><p>A century ago, Oklahoma farmers were plowing soil that contained between 3 and 5 percent organic matter, Shearer says. Today, soil in many parts of the state can have as little as 1 percent organic matter.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_25053\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25053\" alt=\"Jimmy Emmons, who owns the land where the workshop is taking place, talks to fellow farmers about cover crops and no-till farming. \" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/09\/PHOTO-9-17-SoilHealth3-e1442504005539.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/09\/PHOTO-9-17-SoilHealth3-e1442504005539.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/09\/PHOTO-9-17-SoilHealth3-e1442504005539-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/09\/PHOTO-9-17-SoilHealth3-e1442504005539-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/09\/PHOTO-9-17-SoilHealth3-e1442504005539-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jimmy Emmons, who owns the land where the workshop is taking place, talks to fellow farmers about cover crops and no-till farming.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Time for action<\/h3><p>The state is recognizing the problem.\u00a0Shearer and dozens of farmers in August attended a workshop held by the Oklahoma Conservation Commission. The event, on a Dewey County farm near Leedey \u2014 a blip on the map with 435 residents \u2014 was organized to encourage the adoption of more sustainable farming practices.<\/p><p>Agency staff and early converts gave details on the benefits of rotating no-till wheat with cover crops.<\/p><p>Attendees like Roger Ommen were eager to learn more. Ommen, whose farm is a mile outside of Leedey, just planted his first cover crop.<\/p><p>\u201cWe\u2019ll try it,\u201d he says. \u201cWho knows, it might be all we do in the future.\u201d<\/p><p>The benefits of no-till and cover crops abound. The soil stays cooler and retains water better. Eventually, crop yields and the quality of the wheat go up. Farmers can produce more crops with less land. Archuleta\u00a0says it&#8217;s even possible to eliminate the need for commercial fertilizer.<\/p><p>Still, there are hurdles to making the move away from traditional farming. New equipment is expensive and the transition takes time. And old habits die hard. Right now, 75 percent of Oklahoma\u2019s cropland is tilled, and Shearer says fewer than 1 percent of farmers are using cover crops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The solution is to stop tilling and rotate wheat with cover crops \u2014 assortments of plants that cover the field and restore organic matter into the soil when they die. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":25053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[313,486,485,427],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25035"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25035"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25070,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25035\/revisions\/25070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}