Talking about the importance of feeding soil microbes is fine. Speaking with your feet is even better. “Take a closer look—anything you tramp down is just carbon in the soil,” quips soil conservationist Jay Fuhrer on a Friday afternoon in early September. As he says this, he’s beckoning some 120 farmers and others to follow… Read more »
Posts Tagged: soil quality
Teaming with Soil Microbes (part 1)
On a crisp morning in September, North Dakota farmer Gabe Brown held two handfuls of soil and searched for signs of life—theoretically not a difficult task considering one teaspoon of humus contains more organisms than there are humans in the world. But many of the bacteria and invertebrates that lurk in the dark basement of… Read more »
Cashing in on Soil Quality
Talk of how agriculture can improve soil quality seems to be popping up more frequently these days. Perhaps the most exciting recent mention was in an issue of Successful Farming magazine, which has produced an impressive package of stories called The Good Earth. Most of what’s in this package won’t be news to anyone who’s… Read more »
Son of the Soil
What can be more iconic than an image of a farmer holding soil? But when I took the photo featured below, it was more than a symbol—it was visual proof that a good farmer can be as passionate about all that hidden life beneath our feet as some people are about art, science, sports or… Read more »