b'COVER CROP CORNERTHE DIRTY TRUTH ABOUT SOIL HEALTHAND PROFITABILITYWITH RISING INPUT COSTS,producers are lookingworks and evaluate the implications of changing at incorporating regenerative agricultural man- management. There may be a series of manage-agement practices into their operations. There arement changes to start seeing positive results.examples of producers successfully weaning theirWhen youre trying out regenerative practices, land from high use of synthetic inputs and tillage,its important not to rely on just one measurement but where do you begin? What are the first steps?to judge whether things are improving. For exam-How do we do it without losing the farm? ple, if you only check how quickly water soaks The concept of regenerative agriculture is tointo the soil (infiltration rate) and dont see much Kevin Elmy increase the resilience of our soils, reducing reli- change after one season, that doesnt necessarily Elmy is founder of Coverance on chemical inputs, and improve profitabil- mean your efforts arent working.Crops Canada. His booksity. Sounds like a golden egg, but how do we startSoil health is complex, and improvement often Cover Cropping in Westerndown the path? The first step is to identify whatshows up in other ways first. You might notice Canada and Not Just Dirt are available throughyou want to improve. What are the productionfewer weeds, better soil structure (less compac-Friesen Press, Amazon,issues you face? Are they soil constraints? Climate?tion), improved nutrient levels, better nutrient and digitally throughNext, you need to determine if that issue is aexchange (cation exchange capacity), more water Apple Books, Kindle, andsymptom of the problem or the actual cause. If itretention, and more air spaces in the soilall of Google Play. For more infois a symptom, the solution will not fix the actualwhich support stronger crops over time.on Cover Crops Canada visit covercrops.ca problem. You need to dig deeper, or there may beAlso, dont judge success based on a single more than one cause of the problem. year. Changes like these pay off over a full crop For example, low water infiltration rates. It mayrotation. Some benefits (like reduced input costs be due to low soil aggregate stability, relating backor improved drought resilience) take time to show to a bacterially dominated soil. But if we only useup in your bottom line.shallow rooted species to address it, a compactionEasing into a more regenerative management layer below the rooting depth may be the mainsystem makes the most sense for most operations. cause of the low water infiltration. We need toIt reduces the stress of major sudden changescreate a plan, do baseline measurements, executeemotional, economic, and logistical. Doing things your plan, observe any changes, measure late indifferently will create the potential for different out-the season, and then reevaluate the plans success. comes. Focus on an issue, find the potential causes Another issue in moving forward can be bot- of it, and look for solutions to potentially fix it. tlenecks, something unnoticed that will impedeIf it is out of our management, like drought, our progression. Things such as salinity, nutrientask what management steps can we do to reduce or microbial deficiencies and imbalances, lowthe impact of it. It may be including new man-plant diversity, rotation, tillage, or synthetic inputagement or stopping old management. Look at usage. These bottlenecks need to be addressednatural systems and see if your issue is a problem before success can be achieved. in nature. Most of our problems are created by us, Some of the bottlenecks can be attributed toincluding weed and disease issues by the overuse creating more damage than you are fixing. Usingof biocides and synthetic fertilizertrying to the soil aggregate example, having a vegetativemanage using chemistry instead of biology.plant growing builds aggregates, but by usingTake a small parcel of land to apply different fungicides, excessive tillage, over fertilizing, andmanagement to it for a series of years, like a rota-using anhydrous ammonia as a fertilizer source,tion time frame. Try to do more building prac-you will destroy soil aggregatespotentiallytices while minimizing the damage we do to the faster than you can rebuild them. soil system. Monitor and observe what changes. Using a tight rotation of low carbon-returningOnce the system starts to heal, problems start to crops like canola will reduce soil aggregation,disappear. Problems indicate the system is dam-creating compaction and slow water infiltration.aged. Time to start changing to allow the system A systems view is needed to see how your systemto become functional again. 16 SEEDWORLD.COM/CANADA JULY 2025'