Regenerative Agriculture on a Small Scale | What it Looks Like

Farmer Jesse explores the application of regenerative agriculture on a small scale, challenging its typical association with larger farms. He highlights the fluid definitions of regenerative practices, which generally aim to enhance soil health through reduced tillage, cover crops, and crop rotations. Jesse outlines four key principles: keeping soil covered, maintaining diverse plantings, minimizing soil disturbance, and using life-promoting inputs like compost and animals. He emphasizes the importance of context-specific practices and the role of plants and animals in enriching soil ecosystems, while also addressing practical challenges for small-scale growers.

• Regenerative agriculture is often linked with larger-scale farming but is equally applicable to small-scale gardens and market gardens.
• There is no single definition of regenerative agriculture; it is a collection of principles focused on promoting soil health and utilizing soil's regenerative properties.
• Common practices associated with regenerative agriculture include reducing tillage, using cover crops, and incorporating livestock.

"Regenerative means to utilize practices that promote soil health and utilize the regenerative properties of soil, i.e., the soil's ability to improve or repair itself."

• Explanation: This quote encapsulates the essence of regenerative agriculture, emphasizing the focus on soil health and its natural ability to regenerate.

• The term is described as a "swirling living breathing bundle of principles" rather than a single definition.
• A 2020 review of 229 journal articles and 25 practitioner websites highlighted the diverse interpretations of regenerative agriculture.
• Despite variations, common goals include improving ecosystems, soil health, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration.

"Most papers and practitioners agree on what regenerative looks like: reducing tillage, using cover crops and crop rotations, incorporating livestock, etc."

• Explanation: This quote highlights the consensus on core practices of regenerative agriculture despite varying definitions.

• The speaker does not frequently use the term "regenerative" but aligns with its principles through practices like no-till and living soil.
• Regenerative agriculture is distinguished from practices like permaculture, which sometimes repurpose indigenous methods.
• Various practitioners have different sets of principles; the speaker's friend Helen Atau follows 10 principles, while the speaker focuses on four.

"We personally roll with about four principles for living soil: keep the soil covered, keep it planted diversely, disturb it as little as possible, and use a diversity of life-promoting inputs."

• Explanation: This quote outlines the speaker's specific principles for practicing regenerative agriculture, emphasizing soil coverage, diversity, minimal disturbance, and life-promoting inputs.

• Keeping the soil covered involves using mulches and residues to protect it from environmental threats like rain and sunlight.
• Organic mulches, such as compost, straw, and hay, are particularly valuable as they can be consumed by the soil and lead to increased soil organic matter.
• Soil coverage helps retain moisture, which is essential for healthy soil and plant biology, facilitating soil regeneration.

"The idea here is simply to keep the soil armored against rain, wind, sunlight, and whatever else might endanger it."

• Explanation: This quote explains the rationale behind keeping the soil covered, focusing on protection from environmental elements.

"Organic mulches can also retain moisture and can slowly increase soil organic matter, which itself will increase the water holding capacity of soil."

• Explanation: This quote highlights the benefits of organic mulches in enhancing soil moisture retention and organic matter, crucial for soil health.

• Water is a critical component in healthy soil and plant biology, enabling soil microbes to function effectively.
• Microbes use water to create enzymes, which are essential for unlocking nutrients in soil particles.
• The presence of water allows microbes to physically move and interact within the soil environment.

"Water enables soil microbes to not only physically move and sometimes boogie through the soil but also allows microbes to do the work of creating enzymes."

• Explanation: This quote emphasizes the role of water in facilitating microbial activity and enzyme production, which are vital for nutrient cycling in soil.

• Photosynthesis is a crucial chemical process where plants and photosynthesizing microbes convert sunlight into energy, producing oxygen.
• Water is integral to photosynthesis, as it is split into oxygen and hydrogen by plants using sunlight.
• Farmers and gardeners manage photosynthesis by maintaining soil health and covering it, which is easier on a small scale.

"The oxygen that you and I are breathing right now was once water molecules that were split apart by a plant or some photosynthesizing microbe in the sea using photons from the Sun in literally the coolest chemical process on the planet: photosynthesis."

• Highlights the fundamental role of water in photosynthesis and the transformation of water molecules into oxygen through sunlight.

• Keeping soil covered is essential for effective photosynthesis and soil health.
• Plants serve as a bridge between atmospheric carbon dioxide and soil organic matter, converting carbon dioxide into organic compounds and feeding soil microbes.
• Maintaining diverse plant life is crucial for soil health, providing various ecological benefits and enhancing soil's water capacity and nutrient content.

"No amendment, no mulch, no amount of shameless begging will ever repair and replenish the soil quite like plants will."

• Emphasizes the irreplaceable role of plants in soil restoration and health.

"Every plant brings different qualities to the soil, from the amount of biomass it produces above and below ground to the depths of its root systems."

• Underlines the importance of plant diversity in contributing to robust soil health through varied biomass production and root systems.

• Minimizing soil disturbance is crucial to maintaining soil health and structure.
• Repeated deep tillage can negatively impact soil by disrupting its natural infrastructure, including air and water tunnels.
• Soil structure, or infrastructure, includes organic matter and aggregates that are vital for water retention, aeration, and nutrient storage.

"Disturb the soil as little as possible. This is a principle based around the negative impacts disturbance can have on the soil, especially repeated deep tillage."

• Stresses the importance of reducing soil disturbance to preserve its natural infrastructure and health.

"Soil requires fluffy organic matter that gives the soil its water holding capacity and water shedding abilities."

• Highlights the role of organic matter in maintaining soil's water management capabilities and overall structure.

• Regular mechanical tillage disrupts soil structure, requiring the soil to expend energy rebuilding itself.
• Minimizing disturbances is crucial for maintaining soil health and infrastructure.
• Different soil types require different approaches to disturbance and care.

"With regular mechanical tillage, the soil cannot function properly... the soil has to spend a good percentage of its energy effectively rebuilding itself."

• Mechanical tillage damages soil structure, forcing the soil to use resources to recover rather than thrive.

"Some disturbances are worse than others, but by and large, you want to do as little disturbance as you can and increasingly minimize your disturbances over time."

• Minimizing soil disturbance over time is essential to maintaining a healthy soil ecosystem.

"Very compacted soils may want to use a broad fork for a little while to help break up the compaction."

• In specific contexts, like compacted soils, tools like a broad fork can be temporarily beneficial.

• Farming requires reciprocity; what is taken from the soil must be replenished to sustain productivity.
• Unlike other industries, farming cannot simply exhaust resources and move on.
• Sustainable practices are necessary to maintain soil fertility over time.

"The soil requires reciprocity... when you take something from the land, you have to give back to the land."

• Reciprocity in farming is crucial for maintaining soil health and productivity.

"For every other business in the world, they just exhaust a resource and find a new one... in order to keep farming the same land year after year, we have to get back."

• Unlike other industries, farming must focus on sustainability to continue using the same land.

• Diverse life-promoting inputs are essential for maintaining soil health and fertility.
• Mulching, cover crops, and composts are key inputs that enhance soil life and structure.
• Activated biochar and Korean Natural Farming (KNF) are additional methods to support soil health.

"Mulching and using cover crops fall into this category, as both do a great job of feeding the soil and promoting soil life."

• Mulching and cover crops are effective strategies for enhancing soil fertility and microbial activity.

"Composts are arguably the funnest, easiest, and most full-spectrum amendments... can increase microbial biomass."

• Compost is a versatile amendment that boosts microbial populations and soil quality.

"Activated biochar is a great amendment... for long-term carbon and nutrient storage to microbial housing."

• Biochar is beneficial for long-term soil health, particularly in nutrient-poor or tropical regions.

"I'm a fan of K&F or Korean natural farming... homemade amendments that can be largely derived from one's own property."

• Korean Natural Farming offers sustainable, property-derived amendments that improve soil health.

• The JADAM Microorganism Solution (JMS) is a preferred alternative to Korean Natural Farming (KNF) due to its time efficiency and effectiveness.
• JMS can be used as a treatment for compost before integrating it into the soil or applied directly to the soil.
• The preparation of JMS involves using an organic baked potato, cheesecloth, compost, and a pinch of soil, typically from the garden's best bed.
• The solution is left to sit overnight, resulting in a frothy mixture with a light seawater beer smell, indicating readiness.
• JMS is mixed with compost or used to soak soil around plants, serving as an efficient microbial amendment.

"JMS has been an effective treatment for us to add to compost before they go into the soil or directly to the soil."

• JMS is highlighted as an effective treatment for enhancing compost and soil quality.

"The next day it will be a little frothy and smell like a very very light seawater beer that's when you know it's ready."

• The readiness of JMS is indicated by its frothy appearance and light seawater beer smell.

"Adding that combo to our potato seedlings, for instance, has been the best microbial Amendment I've come across just like very clear night and day."

• The use of JMS with potato seedlings is noted for its significant positive impact, described as a "night and day" difference.

• The speaker expresses a decreased interest in compost teas due to their time and energy demands.
• JMS and compost extracts are preferred for their ease and speed as microbial amendments.
• Compost extracts involve squeezing compost out of a bag in water, offering a quick method for microbial amendment.

"I grow less and less interested in compost teas personally only for the amount of time and energy they take."

• The speaker's declining interest in compost teas is attributed to their time and energy requirements.

"Those are my easy fast go-to microbial amendments."

• JMS and compost extracts are identified as the speaker's preferred quick and easy microbial amendments.

• The speaker does not use lab-grown microbial inoculants, such as fungi or bacteria, except for legume inoculants used in the past.
• A bag of Bio Coat Gold from Advancing Eco is being tested for potential use with cover crops.

"Besides legume inoculant which I have used in the past, I don't use any lab-grown microbial inoculants."

• The speaker clarifies the limited use of lab-grown microbial inoculants, with an exception for legume inoculants.

"We did coat our popcorn with it this spring so we'll see."

• The speaker is experimenting with Bio Coat Gold on popcorn, indicating an openness to testing new products.

• Animals are considered critical to regenerative agriculture, especially on larger scales, but are more complex for smaller operations.
• Smaller scale farms may need to rely on smaller animals or fewer animals, especially if constrained by factors like HOA regulations.
• Chickens are used to scratch up compost, clean weed seeds, and fertilize plots, but the number of animals has been reduced due to smaller land size.
• Alternatives for smaller operations include raising quail, rabbits, ducks, or selling chicks at pullet size.
• The integration of animals, even in rotation, is beneficial for soil health, but alternative life-promoting inputs may be necessary in their absence.

"A lot of them consider animals to be critical to regenerative agriculture which is fine for the smaller scale."

• The importance of animals in regenerative agriculture is acknowledged, with a note on the complexity for smaller farms.

"We have been utilizing chickens to help scratch up our compost or clean up some of our weed seeds."

• Chickens are used for various beneficial roles in maintaining soil and compost health.

"I love what animals can do for the soil but obviously they are not always practical on a small scale."

• While animals are valued for their contributions to soil health, their practicality on smaller scales is questioned.