Let’s check out some soil for our Video of the Week. Amanda Roberson, a natural resource specialist for the USDA, shows how unhealthy soil is transforming after just 4 years of no-till and cover crops.
“You’re talking about aggregates. What we’re looking for in a good aggregate, it’s like a grape vine. You’ll get a bunch of little clods that are sticking to the roots. It’s really creating those open structures for stuff to infiltrate. What’s that allowing is the faster infiltration. With this only being 4 years, you can see there’s a little bit of compaction. But it really shows that it’s breaking up pretty nice. Compaction is kind of one that takes a little bit longer to address if you’re going to go to the straight regeneration. Having 4 years, 5 inches is usually a good indicator before you hit a compaction layer. But the longer that you’re doing the no-till and the cover crops, allowing those roots to go deeper and deeper each year, you address it a little more.”
That was from the Racine County Watershed Field Day in Rochester, Wis.
Watch the full version of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.
