“If you have compacted soils, your number one friend is the earthworm. You need to increase the worm populations in your fields,” Understanding Ag, LLC field manager Brian Dougherty says. “The way you do that is to reduce soil disturbance and provide living roots throughout the year.”

Based on worm populations and how active they are, it’s estimated earthworms can turn over the entire top 6 inches of the field every 5-20 years.

“Earthworms can become your tillage tool, and you don’t even have to get any steel out of the shed necessarily,” Dougherty says. “If you’re worried about nutrient stratification, you need worms, you need living roots. You need cover crops to move those nutrients up and down the profile.”

Dougherty says worm channels also produce about 70% of a field’s water infiltration rate and they are loaded with slime that is high in calcium and contains 5-10 times more nutrients than conventionally tilled soil.

For more information on how to remedy compacted soil, read Dan Crummett’s article “Conquering Compaction: Why 4 Weeks Without Living Roots is Too Long” on Cover Crop Strategies.