Pop quiz: What farming practice prepares the land for growing crops through the digging and stirring of soil? If all of us were posed this question, I’m just about certain we’d all be screaming the (conventional) answer: conventional tillage. In a way, we’d be right on the money, but there’s also another acceptable answer: earthworms….
In our last blog, we discussed the often-overlooked value of soil health and living soils. What is that value? Well, it all starts with… actually, don’t worry about it. While the evidence in support of regenerative farming (a philosophy and set of practices that drive soil health/biology forward) seems to be growing, it probably doesn’t do…
Soil is precious. This reality often gets lost in translation, but in truth, it is the core message of regenerative farming. Still, many of our actions within the ag industry seem to act in opposition to this truth. Of course, this is always to our own detriment. So how vital is soil exactly? Well, in…
Picture this: A proactive community of open-minded producers joining forces for the greater good. With all of them together, they work to increase yields and soil health, and gain a better understanding of their livelihoods. If such a community existed, would you be interested? It may seem “pie in the sky”, but one state down,…
Regardless of where you conduct your farming operation, the notion of changing your methods can be daunting. We at Merit or Myth have seen this time and time again firsthand. The deeper we dig into the S.D. farming community (and the farming community at large), the more we see a fundamental truth that defines what…
Being fairly new to the world of soil health, I’ve been introduced to a variety of interesting terms and sayings over the past year. Some of these words and adages were fairly self-explanatory… others sounded more like Greek to me. Of the latter, none were more perplexing than this head scratcher: “Mycorrhizae, superhighways of the…
Not getting the outcome we feel we deserve can be extremely disheartening in any walk of life. Nobody knows this truth more than farmers who pour their blood, sweat, and tears into their craft year round. If we aren’t getting the results we’re looking for, it’s often human nature to assume that something needs to…
What cost are you willing to pay for higher yields? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean how much money are you willing to spend. I mean at what cost… or maybe we should say, “what are you willing to compromise?” Your soil? Your land’s sustainability? Your health? The truth is whether we view it…
“Growing Healthy Communities” I’ve recently been watching a series of videos produced at the 2016 Fuller Field School in Kansas called “Growing Healthy Communities”. The first two videos I was able to catch featured Dr. Christine Jones’s talk “Soil Carbon – the Mycorrhizal Connection” and Gabe Brown’s talk “A Simple Man’s Take on the Current Production Model”. After what…
CHECK OUT OUR LATEST VIDEO ON RESIDUE: For many farmers, crop residue is a nuisance – the unfortunate byproduct of a harvested crop, hence the word “trash”. And what does trash do for any of us other than create a problem that we have to deal with? This conventional view of crop residue has led…
