March 22, 2022 • 35 mins
In Episode 4, we talk with Zach Thode and Elizabeth Black.
Zach manages a large cattle ranch in Livermore Colorado. Elizabeth is an artist in Colorado and manages a Christmas tree farm.
Elizabeth is also the project leader for The Citizen Science Soil Health Project, partially funded by a Western SARE grant and Zach is a producer participant in that project. The Citizen Science Soil Health Project is a grower-driven project which uses the collective knowledge of diverse participating growers to apply local solutions to soil health implementation conundrums.
In addition to raising cattle, Zach grows forage crops which can be challenging in the high elevation and alkaline soils.
Elizabeth was concerned about climate change and started learning about carbon sequestration. This led her to focusing on soil health and taking soil measurements to show what is working.
The Citizen Science Soil Health Project originally aimed for 30 growers. The project now has 48 growers who all take soil samples for 10 years. The group is diverse – small organic vegetable growers, ranchers, and large commodity producers.
The collaboration brings together agencies such as NRCS, academics, producers, policy makers. “It’s a great opportunity for all of us to learn from each other so that we don’t all have to fail in our efforts,” says Zach.
Building soil health is a complex problem without a simple answer or map. “We’ve tried a lot of things. It’s not easy, but we’re getting better.” It’s important to have recommended best practices backed by on-the-ground data. Letting the data speak for itself helps build trust between producers and agencies.
Learn more about The Citizen Science Soil Health Project.
____________
Thanks for listening to Fresh Growth! To learn more about Western SARE and sustainable agriculture, visit our website or find us:
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Contact us at wsare@montana.edu
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to season three of fresh growth podcast by
the Western ser program thatsustainable agriculture research
and education.
I'm your host, Steve Elliottalongside co-host Stacy Clary,
just for background Western serpromotes sustainable farming and
ranching across American westthrough research education and
communication efforts.
Like this podcast, it is fundedby the us department of
(00:27):
agriculture's national Instituteof food and agriculture, fresh
growth introduces producers andag professionals from around the
west who are embracing new waysof farming and ranching.
They'll tell us about theirexperiences adopting more
sustainable agricultural andchallenges and benefits.
They've seen.
Today's guests are Zach fo andElizabeth Black.
(00:50):
Zach manages a large ke ranchLivermore, Colorado.
Elizabeth is an artist inColorado and manage a Christmas
tree farm.
Elizabeth is also the projectleader for the citizen science
soil health project, partiallyfunded by westerner grant.
And Zach is a producerparticipant in that project.
The citizen science soil healthproject is a grower driven
project, which uses thecollective knowledge of diverse
(01:13):
participating growers to applylocal solution to soil health,
imp implementation conundrum,Zach and Elizabeth.
Welcome, and thanks for sittingdown with us.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You're welcome.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Hi, Zach.
As a start, it'll be helpful, um, for us to hear description of
your area in Colorado and, andjust some details about your
operation.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Okay.
I live and operate in Livermore,Colorado, which is a very small
community, um, with no townnecessarily on along highway 2
87, between Fort Collins andLaramie.
Uh, it's historically just been,uh, cattle grazing operations
with some small irrigatedfarming operations.
(01:58):
We are about 6,000 feetelevation and, um, within 12
miles of the Wyoming.
So a little further north than alot of the major farming in
Colorado.
And, uh, so, so that being said,we, we operate it as a cattle
ranch with, um, the added valueof some irrigated forage crops
(02:21):
and irrigated, uh, pasture.
And so there's a range between200 than 500 mother cows on the
ranch, depending on, um, whattime of year it is.
And if we have outside cows inor not.
And that, that I, those outsidecows come in and grays only for
the summer.
And then there's a, there's aherd of cattle that are my own
(02:41):
that I operate year round on theranch.
And they're just, it's a cow capoperation.
So we wean calves and sell themas all natural calves to a
feeder once a year.
And then we raise, um, some ofthose heifers on to be breeding
stock, uh, for future growth andalso to sell, um, the irrigated
(03:02):
crops around here are mostlyforage.
Again, we're pretty far northand a little high in elevation.
So there's reliably only about ahundred to 110 days of frost
free growing.
Um, sometimes we can do moresometimes, um, less.
And so we're a little limited inhow we do things.
So we are careful in, in whatcrops we grow and we try a lot
(03:23):
of different things to try toimprove some of that.
Um, there, this is slopingground.
So, uh, that, that also limitssome of our abilities.
There's not a lot of really flatground.
Um, and we do seem to find outthat we grow more rock, then we
like to grow.
And, um, and so that, that addsto the challenge a little bit.
(03:45):
Uh, so, so that's the generalcusp of our operation.
And, uh, again, I have, I havefour little kids and so they
keep things busy.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Did you return to the , or is if it's, um, relatively
new for you?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So I'm a first generation rancher.
I grew up, um, to a couple of,um, hippie farmers that grew,
um, less than legal crops, um,way back in the seventies and
eighties.
And I, uh, we lived next to alot of cattle ranches in that
time and I liked seeing whatthey did.
(04:26):
So I started working on cattleranches when I was nine.
And then I stayed in the areaafter going to CSU to get an ag
engineering degree and did anumber of engineering, um, jobs
while I was continuing to comeback to operate this ranch and
then purchasing some of our ownproperty as well as our own
cattle herd.
So I'm kind of a, a random fit.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Sounds perfect.
Actually, Elizabeth, we'llswitch over to you, Zach, we'll
get, we'll get back and talkabout your soil health
challenges specifically, butElizabeth, tell us about the,
the soil health project, how itstarted, how it's going, um,
what you've learned, what you'velearned didn't work.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Well, I was really concerned, um, for several years
about climate change and kind ofgot into soil carbon
sequestration through theclimate change door.
And the idea for of the citizenscience soil health project
started at actually at a countycommissioner's hearing on
(05:34):
genetically modified crops.
That was a very contentiousissue in our area.
And I was sitting talking to, um, one of the, uh, GM and I asked
him, you know, have you everhaven't you ever tested your
soil to show that your farmingmethods are actually increasing
(06:00):
soil health and improving soilhealth and sequestering carbon?
And he, his answer was, well,you know, even if we, I haven't,
but even if we had done that, noone would believe us.
And so I thought, well, youknow, maybe that's something I
(06:21):
could do because maybe peoplewould believe me cuz I'm sort of
in the middle, in thatcontroversy.
So I started talking about theproject with different people
and the county was already doingsome soil testing.
So I, I, I got a number oftechnical advisors to help me
(06:43):
local local people who, who wereworking in that area, NRCS
people and stuff, and um, puttogether the project with local
funding and um, then a, a grantfrom Western Sarah when I
started the project up, I wasthinking, okay, if I can get 30
growers, I I'm doing reallywell.
(07:04):
We're now up to 48 growers thatit's a real mix of growers,
vegetable, small organicvegetable growers, uh, larger
commodity growers, ranchers likeZack.
Um, we've got a, a couple ofgolf courses because that's
where a lot of Colorado waterends up.
(07:24):
It's a good example of, of lawnsand what can happen with soil
health on lawns.
We've got a real mix of, ofdifferent kinds of growers in
the project.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
What specifically happens in, in the project?
What, what are these growersdoing?
Getting, seeing, learning.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
So EV each grower has committed to test one site for
10 years to, to, um, collectsoil samples from one site.
For 10 years, we run, um, a freeHaney test on that site every
year for, and then also a, uh,free PL a, uh, soil test every
(08:08):
other year on that site.
And then they can test as manyother sites as they want
whenever they want.
And we can give them adiscounted rate on the, on the
soil tests.
And then we, we collect all thedata, try to give, give them
their test results in a formatthat they can understand.
(08:30):
And then we track that, uh, dataand can show them how their, how
their results compare with theirpeers and also how they progress
over the years.
Does that answer your question?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
It does.
And now my question to Zach istell me about it from your
perspective.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
So I've been in the citizen science soil health
program for two years now.
So two full soil health tests,and it's a good program.
I think she, I think Elizabethhas done a fantastic job of
trying to relate with a widevariety of interested parties,
um, from the farmers to the, tothe policy makers, to the
(09:12):
academics and to the grantwriters like yourself.
And I really appreciate her hardwork in doing so, uh, this is a
complex problem with, uh, not sosimple answers and not so simple
, uh, maps to how to do things.
And so this is a greatopportunity for all of us to
learn from each other so that wedon't all have to fail in our
(09:33):
efforts.
And so it's been good.
I've been doing, um, differentlevels of cover cropping and
soil health projects on thisranch for I've been on this
particular ranch for nine years.
And we've been doing a, a lotsince I first got here.
Um, mostly with some veryidealistic goals in trying to do
it in a very organic and passiveway and found that that was a
(09:59):
complete struggle and nearlyimpossible to try to, um, go
from, from a grass hay operationand Rocky ground to, uh, cover
annual cover cropping with someperennials and, and really
boosting soil health without,um, plowing much cuz we couldn't
cuz of rocks and without thehelp of, um, herbicides and uh,
(10:24):
fertilizers.
And so slowly over time, we'vejust learned that it, this is
not an easy thing to do.
And uh, we've tried a lot ofthings and we're getting better,
Speaker 1 (10:33):
You know, things are getting better.
What, what have you learned thatworks?
What have, what, you know, whathave you changed in nine years?
And, and
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, so I mean I'll, I'll pick it back.
Um, kind of ironic, you know,the world we live in thinks that
organic farming probably, and,and soil health go hand in hand
and it was a little bit of aneyeopener to me.
I wanna say three years ago,Elizabeth presented some of her
results from her earlier, um,data that she had gathered up
(11:03):
and it clearly showed that thesoil health and the organic
farms was not as good as thesoil health and the conventional
farms.
And that was kind of a bit of aneye opener to me, recognizing
that when you plow the ground,as much as those guys have to do
to as weeds and, and prepare forother crops, it was it just so
hard on the, on the soil.
(11:25):
And that kind of changed myperspective at that point to
say, well, I'm willing, I don't,I'm not stuck to some certified
organic standard.
I was just trying to, to, to runthis in a very passive, organic
way to see how I could, I, if Icould make improvements in the
soil without having to put a lotof money into it.
And, uh, and I was just, it wasso slow and recognizing that
(11:47):
maybe adding some fertilizer andmaybe a little bit of herbicides
at small amounts at the righttimes might help me speed up the
process.
And so, um, at that point I kindof switched gears a little bit
and started being a little bitmore, uh, intentional about how
I was planting cover crops andhow I was managing them and how
I was managing my other foragecrops.
(12:08):
And, um, not being stuck to somekind of a, uh, idealistic
standard of organic farming or,or regenerative farming only,
but being willing to kind ofplug it all together and put all
the pieces together and, and,and also working with different
people on different varietiesand different mixtures, and also
being somewhat pragmatic aboutthe price of seed and the cost
(12:32):
of, and the cost of managing allof these moving parts.
And so slowly we've realizedthat, that the fertilizers
really, really help some ofthese cover crops go really fast
and put much more organic matterinto the ground and much more,
um, biomass up into the, theforage so that we can grow,
(12:53):
raise it or cut it and harvestit or put it back into the
ground.
And so kind of not being sostuck to some of these standards
has really helped us moveforward with that.
And, and again, we live in notlevel, ground and not ground
free of rocks.
And so those really kinda limitsome of the things we do.
Um, the, the value that I haveis, um, throughout the growing
(13:15):
season, all of my cows arerelatively close by, and that's
not the case for a lot oflivestock producers.
Um, so it's hard for livestockproducers to integrate livestock
into a growing, um, a, asummertime growing cover crop.
And fortunately for me, I havethat ability cuz my, you, the,
the way my operation works, mycows are nearby and, and it's a
(13:38):
large group of cows.
So it's, so I can actually havean impact on utilizing livestock
in an irrigated cropenvironment.
Whereas if I only had a fewcows, I can't get the same
impact as I can with a largegroup of cows.
Um, mostly because I just don'thave the, the time to go out and
move fence every 15 minutes orevery day even.
(13:59):
And so, um, so it's been, I'vebeen able to kind of accelerate
some of these things and, andthere's learning along the way.
We also do grow some other cropsthat require some tillage and
you see that the impacts of thatin the, in the soil health
scores and the soil testresults, they're reasonable and
they're overcomable.
And, and I think that'ssomething that a lot of farmers
(14:22):
lose sight of is it's not youyou're building soil health, not
just to always be a steadyincline.
You do have to make money someyears where you need to actually
farm your ground and go plantsomething that makes you some
money.
And, uh, and so that's okay ifyour soil health is strong, it
can recover much faster from atillage operation than if it's
(14:43):
at a degraded condition andyou're just always tilling it.
Um, I, I think there's a guy inLouis valley, Rocky Brennan, and
he talks about how quick is, iscover crop fields recover from,
um, from that heavy duty potatogrowing operation.
Um, we don't ever get to thatintensity, but still there's a
recognized difference in howquick your soil recovers, if you
(15:06):
, if you've taken care of it.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
That's something to what Zach said, please.
The, one of the things we found,um, that Zach alluded to was
that we checked median, soilhealth scores of our organic
growers and conventionalgrowers.
And when we compared them thefirst year of the project, um,
they were exactly the same, um,our, our group of organic
(15:33):
growers in our, our conventionalgrowers, they had the same
median soil health score.
The other thing we've found isthat our growers came generally
came into the project with afairly decent knowledge base
about soil health principles.
They kind of knew what theyshould be doing.
Um, the, a broad base principlesthat the NRCS puts out about
(15:57):
decreasing tillage and, um,planting cover crops and getting
more organic matter into the,the, um, increasing your days of
living cover all those kinds ofthings.
Um, what, where they got stuckis the how to do that.
Be cuz of our, you know, we'vehere in Colorado, we've got high
(16:17):
altitude, limited water,alkaline soil, a short growing
season.
I mean, it's, it's, it's a hardplace to farm and a lot of the,
um, success stories, you know,from California and Pennsylvania
just don't apply that out wellhere.
So my point, my philosophy hasbeen that the growers in our
(16:42):
project between all 48 of themare gonna be able to figure out
the, how, um, if they can shareinformation about what, what has
worked for them and, and, um,different things and what hasn't
worked, you know, differentthings that they've tried that
have not wor have not worked.
So, um, that's kind of whatwe're focusing is like, okay,
(17:06):
how do you do that kind of stuffin, in the difficult
environmental conditions we havehere.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
And, and that's something I was interested it in
was the sharing part.
You have 48 growers, how muchinterest has there been from
growers that are notparticipants?
Are they following what you'redoing, asking questions?
Have you been able to do anyoutreach to them given that's
harder with COVID
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Our, our planned outreach kind of bit the that's
the last two years.
So we, we have not had much atall
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Worse than everyone else's
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Yeah.
And it's hard too, because, um,you know, these guys are really
busy.
They don't, they don't have alot of downtime.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Have you been asked questions informally from
people?
Are they, are they payingattention even if you didn't
have a, a, a more formaloutreach event, do you think
other growers are payingattention to what's happening or
maybe they've talked to Zach?
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Well, I've, I've given a presentation every year
at the soil revolutionconference here in Boulder,
which generally there's about200 people at that.
Um, and it's a mix of growers.
Most of the people there are,you know, like the, the hangers
on the ag techy, academic, agovernment people.
(18:32):
And that's probably the majorityof people that attend the
conference.
Um, but they, they, they havebeen interested in what I've had
to say.
You know, I've sort of been ableto tell'em about our group
findings so far what we've foundout as, as a group, just looking
at, um, our test results.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
So same question for you, Zach, have, have you been
able to share what you've doneand what's worked and what
hasn't, you know, with, withcolleagues with other answers
for producers?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
So yes and no again, um, I think to Elizabeth's point
to everybody's point.
So some peer to peer engagementwas severely limited in 2020, um
, a little bit limited in 2021.
And now at this point it's kindof fading, but, um, absolutely
there's, there's definitely peertope engagement.
I would say that I'm notresponsible for this, but in
(19:31):
LAER county, there was 0% covercrossing as of four years ago.
And now there's, there'sprobably 10% of the farmers that
have incorporated some covercropping in some actual standard
or intentional soil healthprojects on their farms and, and
that's new and that's notnecessarily my doing or
(19:52):
Elizabeth doing or anything.
Some of that is coming from, uh,a lot of different places.
And, and I think to Elizabeth'scredit, a lot of her influence
goes probably up instead of out,which is okay because policy
makers hear what she's doing andhear the, hear the data.
And when they go back to thepeople that are farming on
(20:13):
publicly owned property and say,Hey, look, here's, what's
working.
I think that that informationdoes get to the people that need
to hear it.
It might kind of go up and thenout and then back down rather
than just peer to peer, uh, andsame in my environment, but
there's also, uh, there's alsoa, a struggle in Colorado and,
(20:34):
and this is Elizabeth and I havehad this conversation, but
Colorado's a purple state aspurple goes.
And it's relatively politicallydivided right on the line of ag
producers versus their citycousins.
And, uh, and it's kind of aninteresting dance to try to
figure out how to engage andinfluence peers, uh, in that, in
(20:57):
that regard, especially from apolicymaker's perspective, that
not all of the farmers trustpolicymakers and not all of the
farmers are, even if they likethe idea, they're not willing to
just jump up and down and runout and do it because they feel
like that's, uh, giving credenceto something that they don't
believe in.
And it's a challenging dynamicto be in the middle of that,
(21:19):
which I think is extremelyimportant in society to try to
bring some of those bondstogether rather than, uh,
standing in isolation.
And that conversation coulddrift a long ways.
I'll just leave it like that.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
You you're talking about building bridges, uh, and
bring people together.
How, how were you able to dothat and how successful has that
been, do you feel
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Well, the thing that I I have found is that it takes
a long time to build trust.
And so I, I mean, a lot of thegrowers in our area, I'm sure
it's the same all over the west.
They've got these earnest youngpeople who come in, who are
(22:07):
going to work the agronomist forthe NRCS or the soil
conservation district manager.
And they stay there for a year,a couple years, and then they
move on to a new job.
And so it's like growers gettired of training these people
(22:28):
and interacting with them.
And it's like, okay, well, howlong are you gonna be hang
around?
So a, a lot of it is sort of, ithelps that I'm old, I think, and
that I've lived here a while andit, so it's a process and it,
you know, it's, it, it's beenthree years.
I'm slowly starting to get sometrust.
(22:50):
And part of what I do is thathas to do with that question.
You just asked, like when I goout and, and take soil samples,
I try to get to talking, pick upthe soil samples for my growers.
I try to get to talking withthem.
And someone might mention that,oh, they're thinking about cover
crops.
And I say, well, you reallyshould talk to this guy cuz he's
(23:11):
the expert on it.
And like, you know, anothergrower was, was saying that he
had a hard time with, with covercrops.
And I said, well, you reallyshould talk to Zach.
You know, Zach, th because he's,he knows about that stuff that
you're interested in.
So, so that's what I see my, myjob as is trying to, you know,
(23:33):
find out what different peopleare really good at and then
connecting them with each otherso that they talk to each other.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
One thing, reading your report, Elizabeth.
Um, I, I liked that you made thepoint that things take time in
agriculture, um, that thingsdon't change quickly.
And from a grower's point ofview, you've got a crop a year.
I mean, so to implementsomething new really is a, is a
one year timeline.
(24:01):
And if it doesn't work, you tryto get next year, but the
weather conditions are differentor you didn't get enough rain.
I mean, something changes.
So it's, it's really hard tomove things quickly.
And, And it sounds like you'veincorporated that learning into
this, that, that maybe it didn'thappen as quickly as, as you
(24:22):
would hoped at the beginning,but you've recognized this is a
10 process project and it's alonger process than that.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
So, and let me To, to Elizabeth's credit, one of the
tricky things in trying to add,uh, value to, to improving soil
and improving agriculturalproduction is farmers really,
really don't like somebody fromthe government or somebody from
the city to come out to theirfarm and tell them how to farm.
Um, they just, they, they lookat that as an attack, somewhat
(24:54):
of an insult, and they don'ttrust that person anyway.
And Elizabeth has never, evergone to anybody's farm and told
them how to farm.
She just collects the data fromtheir farming operations, unless
the data speak for it.
So, and that's, that's much,much more received than somebody
showing up on my farm andsaying, Hey, you need to quit
(25:15):
spraying or you need to quitplowing, or you need to do all
these things because that comesacross as a strong insult and,
and non-empathetic, and in this,in this day, it doesn't work.
Yeah.
And so Elizabeth has let, justlet our own data speak for
itself and, and done a, a verygood job of compiling data in a
(25:39):
manner that it can paint apicture without having to put a
lot of, uh, opinions with it.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah.
But Zach, one of downsides ofthat, I mean, you're one of the
people that can look at thatsoil test and figure it out.
And, and about half of ourgrowers can, but the other half
of'em are having a really hardtime doing that.
And so we're trying to figureout how, how we could give them
(26:13):
a very short, focusedrecommendation that would be in
addition to the soil test, youknow, and hopefully they would
take it, you know, like, okay,this is free and you get what
you pay for, and you can chooseto ignore this if you want to,
(26:35):
but this is what we think wecould recommend, you know, based
on these test results and your,your growing methods,
Speaker 5 (26:45):
How do you see that possibly working, uh, given what
Zach said about somebody comingand saying do this, and you're,
you're saying we could giverecommendations.
Who would that we possibly be?
Well,
Speaker 4 (26:59):
It would, it would be , um, me and I mean, I'm, I'm
pretty limited.
I'm not a soil scientist, youknow, I'm, I'm a, I'm more, much
more of a gardener than afarmer.
And that, that's why I don'ttell my farmers what to do
because I don't know what to do.
But also, um, a woman namedVanessa who is in charge of the
(27:25):
local soil conservation districtand, uh, another woman who, who
is soil health specialist for,uh, Boulder county parks and
open space.
And what we were thinking ismaybe the three of us could get
together and try and figure outsome, uh, recommendation that we
could give a, to go with theirsoil tests.
(27:47):
Part of, part of the problem isthat, that we're still also
figuring out how to interpretsoil health.
The three of us are trying tofigure out how to interpret soil
health tests, ourselves.
This is fairly new to all of us.
And so we don't have the, thelength and breadth of experience
that someone like who runs a, asoil health lab would have, you
(28:12):
know, someone like Rick Kaney orLance Gunderson.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
So you mentioned thinking about how to add some
recommendations for the folksthat are having a harder time,
just reading the report, whereelse do you see the project
going over the next few years,as you, as you keep going,
Speaker 4 (28:34):
We've seen all our data all together.
You know, we have like this lastyear, we had a hundred different
, 130 different soil samplesthat we were, we added to our,
our, uh, database and with allour data or we're able to see
trends.
But when we look at individuals,growers data, we're seeing a lot
(28:55):
of variability.
We've seen a pattern in that.
The pattern that we we've seenis is that the, our poor soils
tend to be fairly stable and wedon't see much variability in
them.
Our bed, water soils are wherewe start seeing a lot of
bounciness in some of some ofour, um, scores.
And it's really hard to figureout we need to, um, analyze that
(29:19):
further, look at that more andtry and figure out how we can,
you know, whether more time willgive us more, give us better,
more stable data it, or whetherit's sampling methods or
something else that we're doing.
We we've gotta figure that pieceof it out because there is a lot
of variability there.
(29:42):
My main goal is to at the end ofthis, have a number of people in
the community who growers, whoare themselves, soil health
leaders, and who peers will goto and ask for advice.
And, you know, will berecognized as good sources of
information for people who wantto improve their soil health.
(30:06):
So that, that's where I hope toget to.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
I was just gonna ask Zach, where, where do you hope
this goes on your ranch
Speaker 2 (30:16):
In regards to my own operation, this is an effort to
always make improvements, nomatter what the condition is,
the, the improvements need to besustainable and objective and
financially sufficient and, andsocially acceptable too.
And, and whether that happens,you know, as a part of Elizabeth
(30:39):
citizens, soil health project,or if it's something that we
just continue to do on our own,that that is gonna happen.
I expect that every year we'lltry something new and we'll see
how it works.
And we'll, we will learnsomething from that and we will
apply it, uh, the next year.
And we will apply it to our, uh,efforts in the community.
(31:02):
Uh, as, as we was mentioned,early year, farming operates in
crops and crops operate on anannual basis.
Typically, maybe there's twocrops in a year, but mostly one
year at a time.
And so soil health education bytrial and error is an extremely
slow process.
And the, the results from theefforts a year ago are just now,
(31:25):
now being shown.
And now you have to make adecision for what you're gonna
do in the following year.
So you're always maybe two yearsbehind your activities.
And so knowing what works andwhat doesn't work is, is a bit
anecdotal at best and maybe lessthan scientific, but it still
helps.
And it helps neighbors.
(31:46):
Uh, I will add a little bit tothis, to this picture.
I am, uh, the I'm on theconservation district board for
now Lara county.
And I am looking at this from alocal producer's perspective and
saying, how can we utilize goodpractice to get more financially
(32:07):
sustainable farm main going inthe county so that we meet
multiple objectives and thoseobjectives are sustainable
farming, but also our municipalpartners are looking for
improved nutrients in therivers, improved air quality,
improved water, quality,improved, open space view sheds.
And so I think we can achieve alot of these things that if we
(32:29):
start to incentivize farmers todo it, but we also need to, we
need to be slow and methodicalabout it, because if you just
start incentivizing farmers todo practices like cover crops,
or like no till, or like reducedtill, or like nutrient
management, you have to kind ofhave a plan on how that works
(32:51):
and how, what works and whatdoesn't and what crops work and
what crops don't and what kindof precision agriculture you
need to incorporate and whatkind of impacts they're gonna
have throughout the life cycleof that practice.
And, uh, we're looking at it andsaying how, if we can establish
some of these best practicesthat are backed by on the ground
data, like what Elizabeth iscollecting, then it's simpler to
(33:16):
start accepting those bestmanagement practices than moving
them into the field and saying,yes, this is why we do this is
it shows improvements.
And then our partners in themunicipalities can utilize some
of that benefit to theiradvantage, like nutrient trading
in a river.
So they don't have to spend somuch money to improve their
(33:36):
wastewater treatment plant.
The farmers can, uh, reduce someof the nutrients on the river
just by doing better practicesthat then kind of help pay for
those practices.
So I see it in a bigger lightthan just my own, but it's been,
it's fun to also learn on my ownand figure it out.
And I, and I have a, a differentperspective to farming than most
(33:57):
generational farmers.
I don't have a grandfather or afather that's gonna roll over in
his grave.
If I don't do something the wayhe did it.
And I, and I don't do it on theday, he did it.
And that's a big struggle for alot of farmers in my generation
that it's hard to, to makechanges in an operation because
(34:19):
grandpa might come outta thegrave and thank me on the rear
end for doing that.
And, and it's a hard thing forthose guys to do.
Um, and I have that, thatbenefit of not having that, that
in over my head.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yeah,
Speaker 5 (34:34):
Zach, you just really laid out kind of a, a vision
that you have for the area, andthen both you and Elizabeth have
a very clear plan and thinkrealistically about it takes
time to, to make these changes,to build the trust, to gather
the data.
I really appreciate you takingthe time to, to talk to us both
about your operation, Zach, and,and then both of you the, on the
(34:58):
bigger picture of how theproject is going in Colorado.
So thank you very much forjoining us.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Thanks.
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
All right.
Have a great day.
Thanks a lot.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
All right.
You too.
Thanks.
Both of you.
We'll be following up.
Bye.
Speaker 6 (35:14):
Thank you for listening to fresh growth.
We hope you enjoyed this episodefor more information on Western
Sarah grants and our learningresources visit Western
sarah.org.
Welcome to season three of fresh growth podcast by
the Western ser program thatsustainable agriculture research
and education.
I'm your host, Steve Elliottalongside co-host Stacy Clary,
just for background Western serpromotes sustainable farming and
ranching across American westthrough research education and
communication efforts.
Like this podcast, it is fundedby the us department of
(00:27):
agriculture's national Instituteof food and agriculture, fresh
growth introduces producers andag professionals from around the
west who are embracing new waysof farming and ranching.
They'll tell us about theirexperiences adopting more
sustainable agricultural andchallenges and benefits.
They've seen.
Today's guests are Zach fo andElizabeth Black.
(00:50):
Zach manages a large ke ranchLivermore, Colorado.
Elizabeth is an artist inColorado and manage a Christmas
tree farm.
Elizabeth is also the projectleader for the citizen science
soil health project, partiallyfunded by westerner grant.
And Zach is a producerparticipant in that project.
The citizen science soil healthproject is a grower driven
project, which uses thecollective knowledge of diverse
(01:13):
participating growers to applylocal solution to soil health,
imp implementation conundrum,Zach and Elizabeth.
Welcome, and thanks for sittingdown with us.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You're welcome.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Hi, Zach.
As a start, it'll be helpful, um, for us to hear description of
your area in Colorado and, andjust some details about your
operation.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Okay.
I live and operate in Livermore,Colorado, which is a very small
community, um, with no townnecessarily on along highway 2
87, between Fort Collins andLaramie.
Uh, it's historically just been,uh, cattle grazing operations
with some small irrigatedfarming operations.
(01:58):
We are about 6,000 feetelevation and, um, within 12
miles of the Wyoming.
So a little further north than alot of the major farming in
Colorado.
And, uh, so, so that being said,we, we operate it as a cattle
ranch with, um, the added valueof some irrigated forage crops
(02:21):
and irrigated, uh, pasture.
And so there's a range between200 than 500 mother cows on the
ranch, depending on, um, whattime of year it is.
And if we have outside cows inor not.
And that, that I, those outsidecows come in and grays only for
the summer.
And then there's a, there's aherd of cattle that are my own
(02:41):
that I operate year round on theranch.
And they're just, it's a cow capoperation.
So we wean calves and sell themas all natural calves to a
feeder once a year.
And then we raise, um, some ofthose heifers on to be breeding
stock, uh, for future growth andalso to sell, um, the irrigated
(03:02):
crops around here are mostlyforage.
Again, we're pretty far northand a little high in elevation.
So there's reliably only about ahundred to 110 days of frost
free growing.
Um, sometimes we can do moresometimes, um, less.
And so we're a little limited inhow we do things.
So we are careful in, in whatcrops we grow and we try a lot
(03:23):
of different things to try toimprove some of that.
Um, there, this is slopingground.
So, uh, that, that also limitssome of our abilities.
There's not a lot of really flatground.
Um, and we do seem to find outthat we grow more rock, then we
like to grow.
And, um, and so that, that addsto the challenge a little bit.
(03:45):
Uh, so, so that's the generalcusp of our operation.
And, uh, again, I have, I havefour little kids and so they
keep things busy.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Did you return to the , or is if it's, um, relatively
new for you?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So I'm a first generation rancher.
I grew up, um, to a couple of,um, hippie farmers that grew,
um, less than legal crops, um,way back in the seventies and
eighties.
And I, uh, we lived next to alot of cattle ranches in that
time and I liked seeing whatthey did.
(04:26):
So I started working on cattleranches when I was nine.
And then I stayed in the areaafter going to CSU to get an ag
engineering degree and did anumber of engineering, um, jobs
while I was continuing to comeback to operate this ranch and
then purchasing some of our ownproperty as well as our own
cattle herd.
So I'm kind of a, a random fit.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Sounds perfect.
Actually, Elizabeth, we'llswitch over to you, Zach, we'll
get, we'll get back and talkabout your soil health
challenges specifically, butElizabeth, tell us about the,
the soil health project, how itstarted, how it's going, um,
what you've learned, what you'velearned didn't work.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Well, I was really concerned, um, for several years
about climate change and kind ofgot into soil carbon
sequestration through theclimate change door.
And the idea for of the citizenscience soil health project
started at actually at a countycommissioner's hearing on
(05:34):
genetically modified crops.
That was a very contentiousissue in our area.
And I was sitting talking to, um, one of the, uh, GM and I asked
him, you know, have you everhaven't you ever tested your
soil to show that your farmingmethods are actually increasing
(06:00):
soil health and improving soilhealth and sequestering carbon?
And he, his answer was, well,you know, even if we, I haven't,
but even if we had done that, noone would believe us.
And so I thought, well, youknow, maybe that's something I
(06:21):
could do because maybe peoplewould believe me cuz I'm sort of
in the middle, in thatcontroversy.
So I started talking about theproject with different people
and the county was already doingsome soil testing.
So I, I, I got a number oftechnical advisors to help me
(06:43):
local local people who, who wereworking in that area, NRCS
people and stuff, and um, puttogether the project with local
funding and um, then a, a grantfrom Western Sarah when I
started the project up, I wasthinking, okay, if I can get 30
growers, I I'm doing reallywell.
(07:04):
We're now up to 48 growers thatit's a real mix of growers,
vegetable, small organicvegetable growers, uh, larger
commodity growers, ranchers likeZack.
Um, we've got a, a couple ofgolf courses because that's
where a lot of Colorado waterends up.
(07:24):
It's a good example of, of lawnsand what can happen with soil
health on lawns.
We've got a real mix of, ofdifferent kinds of growers in
the project.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
What specifically happens in, in the project?
What, what are these growersdoing?
Getting, seeing, learning.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
So EV each grower has committed to test one site for
10 years to, to, um, collectsoil samples from one site.
For 10 years, we run, um, a freeHaney test on that site every
year for, and then also a, uh,free PL a, uh, soil test every
(08:08):
other year on that site.
And then they can test as manyother sites as they want
whenever they want.
And we can give them adiscounted rate on the, on the
soil tests.
And then we, we collect all thedata, try to give, give them
their test results in a formatthat they can understand.
(08:30):
And then we track that, uh, dataand can show them how their, how
their results compare with theirpeers and also how they progress
over the years.
Does that answer your question?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
It does.
And now my question to Zach istell me about it from your
perspective.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
So I've been in the citizen science soil health
program for two years now.
So two full soil health tests,and it's a good program.
I think she, I think Elizabethhas done a fantastic job of
trying to relate with a widevariety of interested parties,
um, from the farmers to the, tothe policy makers, to the
(09:12):
academics and to the grantwriters like yourself.
And I really appreciate her hardwork in doing so, uh, this is a
complex problem with, uh, not sosimple answers and not so simple
, uh, maps to how to do things.
And so this is a greatopportunity for all of us to
learn from each other so that wedon't all have to fail in our
(09:33):
efforts.
And so it's been good.
I've been doing, um, differentlevels of cover cropping and
soil health projects on thisranch for I've been on this
particular ranch for nine years.
And we've been doing a, a lotsince I first got here.
Um, mostly with some veryidealistic goals in trying to do
it in a very organic and passiveway and found that that was a
(09:59):
complete struggle and nearlyimpossible to try to, um, go
from, from a grass hay operationand Rocky ground to, uh, cover
annual cover cropping with someperennials and, and really
boosting soil health without,um, plowing much cuz we couldn't
cuz of rocks and without thehelp of, um, herbicides and uh,
(10:24):
fertilizers.
And so slowly over time, we'vejust learned that it, this is
not an easy thing to do.
And uh, we've tried a lot ofthings and we're getting better,
Speaker 1 (10:33):
You know, things are getting better.
What, what have you learned thatworks?
What have, what, you know, whathave you changed in nine years?
And, and
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, so I mean I'll, I'll pick it back.
Um, kind of ironic, you know,the world we live in thinks that
organic farming probably, and,and soil health go hand in hand
and it was a little bit of aneyeopener to me.
I wanna say three years ago,Elizabeth presented some of her
results from her earlier, um,data that she had gathered up
(11:03):
and it clearly showed that thesoil health and the organic
farms was not as good as thesoil health and the conventional
farms.
And that was kind of a bit of aneye opener to me, recognizing
that when you plow the ground,as much as those guys have to do
to as weeds and, and prepare forother crops, it was it just so
hard on the, on the soil.
(11:25):
And that kind of changed myperspective at that point to
say, well, I'm willing, I don't,I'm not stuck to some certified
organic standard.
I was just trying to, to, to runthis in a very passive, organic
way to see how I could, I, if Icould make improvements in the
soil without having to put a lotof money into it.
And, uh, and I was just, it wasso slow and recognizing that
(11:47):
maybe adding some fertilizer andmaybe a little bit of herbicides
at small amounts at the righttimes might help me speed up the
process.
And so, um, at that point I kindof switched gears a little bit
and started being a little bitmore, uh, intentional about how
I was planting cover crops andhow I was managing them and how
I was managing my other foragecrops.
(12:08):
And, um, not being stuck to somekind of a, uh, idealistic
standard of organic farming or,or regenerative farming only,
but being willing to kind ofplug it all together and put all
the pieces together and, and,and also working with different
people on different varietiesand different mixtures, and also
being somewhat pragmatic aboutthe price of seed and the cost
(12:32):
of, and the cost of managing allof these moving parts.
And so slowly we've realizedthat, that the fertilizers
really, really help some ofthese cover crops go really fast
and put much more organic matterinto the ground and much more,
um, biomass up into the, theforage so that we can grow,
(12:53):
raise it or cut it and harvestit or put it back into the
ground.
And so kind of not being sostuck to some of these standards
has really helped us moveforward with that.
And, and again, we live in notlevel, ground and not ground
free of rocks.
And so those really kinda limitsome of the things we do.
Um, the, the value that I haveis, um, throughout the growing
(13:15):
season, all of my cows arerelatively close by, and that's
not the case for a lot oflivestock producers.
Um, so it's hard for livestockproducers to integrate livestock
into a growing, um, a, asummertime growing cover crop.
And fortunately for me, I havethat ability cuz my, you, the,
the way my operation works, mycows are nearby and, and it's a
(13:38):
large group of cows.
So it's, so I can actually havean impact on utilizing livestock
in an irrigated cropenvironment.
Whereas if I only had a fewcows, I can't get the same
impact as I can with a largegroup of cows.
Um, mostly because I just don'thave the, the time to go out and
move fence every 15 minutes orevery day even.
(13:59):
And so, um, so it's been, I'vebeen able to kind of accelerate
some of these things and, andthere's learning along the way.
We also do grow some other cropsthat require some tillage and
you see that the impacts of thatin the, in the soil health
scores and the soil testresults, they're reasonable and
they're overcomable.
And, and I think that'ssomething that a lot of farmers
(14:22):
lose sight of is it's not youyou're building soil health, not
just to always be a steadyincline.
You do have to make money someyears where you need to actually
farm your ground and go plantsomething that makes you some
money.
And, uh, and so that's okay ifyour soil health is strong, it
can recover much faster from atillage operation than if it's
(14:43):
at a degraded condition andyou're just always tilling it.
Um, I, I think there's a guy inLouis valley, Rocky Brennan, and
he talks about how quick is, iscover crop fields recover from,
um, from that heavy duty potatogrowing operation.
Um, we don't ever get to thatintensity, but still there's a
recognized difference in howquick your soil recovers, if you
(15:06):
, if you've taken care of it.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
That's something to what Zach said, please.
The, one of the things we found,um, that Zach alluded to was
that we checked median, soilhealth scores of our organic
growers and conventionalgrowers.
And when we compared them thefirst year of the project, um,
they were exactly the same, um,our, our group of organic
(15:33):
growers in our, our conventionalgrowers, they had the same
median soil health score.
The other thing we've found isthat our growers came generally
came into the project with afairly decent knowledge base
about soil health principles.
They kind of knew what theyshould be doing.
Um, the, a broad base principlesthat the NRCS puts out about
(15:57):
decreasing tillage and, um,planting cover crops and getting
more organic matter into the,the, um, increasing your days of
living cover all those kinds ofthings.
Um, what, where they got stuckis the how to do that.
Be cuz of our, you know, we'vehere in Colorado, we've got high
(16:17):
altitude, limited water,alkaline soil, a short growing
season.
I mean, it's, it's, it's a hardplace to farm and a lot of the,
um, success stories, you know,from California and Pennsylvania
just don't apply that out wellhere.
So my point, my philosophy hasbeen that the growers in our
(16:42):
project between all 48 of themare gonna be able to figure out
the, how, um, if they can shareinformation about what, what has
worked for them and, and, um,different things and what hasn't
worked, you know, differentthings that they've tried that
have not wor have not worked.
So, um, that's kind of whatwe're focusing is like, okay,
(17:06):
how do you do that kind of stuffin, in the difficult
environmental conditions we havehere.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
And, and that's something I was interested it in
was the sharing part.
You have 48 growers, how muchinterest has there been from
growers that are notparticipants?
Are they following what you'redoing, asking questions?
Have you been able to do anyoutreach to them given that's
harder with COVID
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Our, our planned outreach kind of bit the that's
the last two years.
So we, we have not had much atall
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Worse than everyone else's
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Yeah.
And it's hard too, because, um,you know, these guys are really
busy.
They don't, they don't have alot of downtime.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Have you been asked questions informally from
people?
Are they, are they payingattention even if you didn't
have a, a, a more formaloutreach event, do you think
other growers are payingattention to what's happening or
maybe they've talked to Zach?
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Well, I've, I've given a presentation every year
at the soil revolutionconference here in Boulder,
which generally there's about200 people at that.
Um, and it's a mix of growers.
Most of the people there are,you know, like the, the hangers
on the ag techy, academic, agovernment people.
(18:32):
And that's probably the majorityof people that attend the
conference.
Um, but they, they, they havebeen interested in what I've had
to say.
You know, I've sort of been ableto tell'em about our group
findings so far what we've foundout as, as a group, just looking
at, um, our test results.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
So same question for you, Zach, have, have you been
able to share what you've doneand what's worked and what
hasn't, you know, with, withcolleagues with other answers
for producers?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
So yes and no again, um, I think to Elizabeth's point
to everybody's point.
So some peer to peer engagementwas severely limited in 2020, um
, a little bit limited in 2021.
And now at this point it's kindof fading, but, um, absolutely
there's, there's definitely peertope engagement.
I would say that I'm notresponsible for this, but in
(19:31):
LAER county, there was 0% covercrossing as of four years ago.
And now there's, there'sprobably 10% of the farmers that
have incorporated some covercropping in some actual standard
or intentional soil healthprojects on their farms and, and
that's new and that's notnecessarily my doing or
(19:52):
Elizabeth doing or anything.
Some of that is coming from, uh,a lot of different places.
And, and I think to Elizabeth'scredit, a lot of her influence
goes probably up instead of out,which is okay because policy
makers hear what she's doing andhear the, hear the data.
And when they go back to thepeople that are farming on
(20:13):
publicly owned property and say,Hey, look, here's, what's
working.
I think that that informationdoes get to the people that need
to hear it.
It might kind of go up and thenout and then back down rather
than just peer to peer, uh, andsame in my environment, but
there's also, uh, there's alsoa, a struggle in Colorado and,
(20:34):
and this is Elizabeth and I havehad this conversation, but
Colorado's a purple state aspurple goes.
And it's relatively politicallydivided right on the line of ag
producers versus their citycousins.
And, uh, and it's kind of aninteresting dance to try to
figure out how to engage andinfluence peers, uh, in that, in
(20:57):
that regard, especially from apolicymaker's perspective, that
not all of the farmers trustpolicymakers and not all of the
farmers are, even if they likethe idea, they're not willing to
just jump up and down and runout and do it because they feel
like that's, uh, giving credenceto something that they don't
believe in.
And it's a challenging dynamicto be in the middle of that,
(21:19):
which I think is extremelyimportant in society to try to
bring some of those bondstogether rather than, uh,
standing in isolation.
And that conversation coulddrift a long ways.
I'll just leave it like that.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
You you're talking about building bridges, uh, and
bring people together.
How, how were you able to dothat and how successful has that
been, do you feel
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Well, the thing that I I have found is that it takes
a long time to build trust.
And so I, I mean, a lot of thegrowers in our area, I'm sure
it's the same all over the west.
They've got these earnest youngpeople who come in, who are
(22:07):
going to work the agronomist forthe NRCS or the soil
conservation district manager.
And they stay there for a year,a couple years, and then they
move on to a new job.
And so it's like growers gettired of training these people
(22:28):
and interacting with them.
And it's like, okay, well, howlong are you gonna be hang
around?
So a, a lot of it is sort of, ithelps that I'm old, I think, and
that I've lived here a while andit, so it's a process and it,
you know, it's, it, it's beenthree years.
I'm slowly starting to get sometrust.
(22:50):
And part of what I do is thathas to do with that question.
You just asked, like when I goout and, and take soil samples,
I try to get to talking, pick upthe soil samples for my growers.
I try to get to talking withthem.
And someone might mention that,oh, they're thinking about cover
crops.
And I say, well, you reallyshould talk to this guy cuz he's
(23:11):
the expert on it.
And like, you know, anothergrower was, was saying that he
had a hard time with, with covercrops.
And I said, well, you reallyshould talk to Zach.
You know, Zach, th because he's,he knows about that stuff that
you're interested in.
So, so that's what I see my, myjob as is trying to, you know,
(23:33):
find out what different peopleare really good at and then
connecting them with each otherso that they talk to each other.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
One thing, reading your report, Elizabeth.
Um, I, I liked that you made thepoint that things take time in
agriculture, um, that thingsdon't change quickly.
And from a grower's point ofview, you've got a crop a year.
I mean, so to implementsomething new really is a, is a
one year timeline.
(24:01):
And if it doesn't work, you tryto get next year, but the
weather conditions are differentor you didn't get enough rain.
I mean, something changes.
So it's, it's really hard tomove things quickly.
And, And it sounds like you'veincorporated that learning into
this, that, that maybe it didn'thappen as quickly as, as you
(24:22):
would hoped at the beginning,but you've recognized this is a
10 process project and it's alonger process than that.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
So, and let me To, to Elizabeth's credit, one of the
tricky things in trying to add,uh, value to, to improving soil
and improving agriculturalproduction is farmers really,
really don't like somebody fromthe government or somebody from
the city to come out to theirfarm and tell them how to farm.
Um, they just, they, they lookat that as an attack, somewhat
(24:54):
of an insult, and they don'ttrust that person anyway.
And Elizabeth has never, evergone to anybody's farm and told
them how to farm.
She just collects the data fromtheir farming operations, unless
the data speak for it.
So, and that's, that's much,much more received than somebody
showing up on my farm andsaying, Hey, you need to quit
(25:15):
spraying or you need to quitplowing, or you need to do all
these things because that comesacross as a strong insult and,
and non-empathetic, and in this,in this day, it doesn't work.
Yeah.
And so Elizabeth has let, justlet our own data speak for
itself and, and done a, a verygood job of compiling data in a
(25:39):
manner that it can paint apicture without having to put a
lot of, uh, opinions with it.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah.
But Zach, one of downsides ofthat, I mean, you're one of the
people that can look at thatsoil test and figure it out.
And, and about half of ourgrowers can, but the other half
of'em are having a really hardtime doing that.
And so we're trying to figureout how, how we could give them
(26:13):
a very short, focusedrecommendation that would be in
addition to the soil test, youknow, and hopefully they would
take it, you know, like, okay,this is free and you get what
you pay for, and you can chooseto ignore this if you want to,
(26:35):
but this is what we think wecould recommend, you know, based
on these test results and your,your growing methods,
Speaker 5 (26:45):
How do you see that possibly working, uh, given what
Zach said about somebody comingand saying do this, and you're,
you're saying we could giverecommendations.
Who would that we possibly be?
Well,
Speaker 4 (26:59):
It would, it would be , um, me and I mean, I'm, I'm
pretty limited.
I'm not a soil scientist, youknow, I'm, I'm a, I'm more, much
more of a gardener than afarmer.
And that, that's why I don'ttell my farmers what to do
because I don't know what to do.
But also, um, a woman namedVanessa who is in charge of the
(27:25):
local soil conservation districtand, uh, another woman who, who
is soil health specialist for,uh, Boulder county parks and
open space.
And what we were thinking ismaybe the three of us could get
together and try and figure outsome, uh, recommendation that we
could give a, to go with theirsoil tests.
(27:47):
Part of, part of the problem isthat, that we're still also
figuring out how to interpretsoil health.
The three of us are trying tofigure out how to interpret soil
health tests, ourselves.
This is fairly new to all of us.
And so we don't have the, thelength and breadth of experience
that someone like who runs a, asoil health lab would have, you
(28:12):
know, someone like Rick Kaney orLance Gunderson.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
So you mentioned thinking about how to add some
recommendations for the folksthat are having a harder time,
just reading the report, whereelse do you see the project
going over the next few years,as you, as you keep going,
Speaker 4 (28:34):
We've seen all our data all together.
You know, we have like this lastyear, we had a hundred different
, 130 different soil samplesthat we were, we added to our,
our, uh, database and with allour data or we're able to see
trends.
But when we look at individuals,growers data, we're seeing a lot
(28:55):
of variability.
We've seen a pattern in that.
The pattern that we we've seenis is that the, our poor soils
tend to be fairly stable and wedon't see much variability in
them.
Our bed, water soils are wherewe start seeing a lot of
bounciness in some of some ofour, um, scores.
And it's really hard to figureout we need to, um, analyze that
(29:19):
further, look at that more andtry and figure out how we can,
you know, whether more time willgive us more, give us better,
more stable data it, or whetherit's sampling methods or
something else that we're doing.
We we've gotta figure that pieceof it out because there is a lot
of variability there.
(29:42):
My main goal is to at the end ofthis, have a number of people in
the community who growers, whoare themselves, soil health
leaders, and who peers will goto and ask for advice.
And, you know, will berecognized as good sources of
information for people who wantto improve their soil health.
(30:06):
So that, that's where I hope toget to.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
I was just gonna ask Zach, where, where do you hope
this goes on your ranch
Speaker 2 (30:16):
In regards to my own operation, this is an effort to
always make improvements, nomatter what the condition is,
the, the improvements need to besustainable and objective and
financially sufficient and, andsocially acceptable too.
And, and whether that happens,you know, as a part of Elizabeth
(30:39):
citizens, soil health project,or if it's something that we
just continue to do on our own,that that is gonna happen.
I expect that every year we'lltry something new and we'll see
how it works.
And we'll, we will learnsomething from that and we will
apply it, uh, the next year.
And we will apply it to our, uh,efforts in the community.
(31:02):
Uh, as, as we was mentioned,early year, farming operates in
crops and crops operate on anannual basis.
Typically, maybe there's twocrops in a year, but mostly one
year at a time.
And so soil health education bytrial and error is an extremely
slow process.
And the, the results from theefforts a year ago are just now,
(31:25):
now being shown.
And now you have to make adecision for what you're gonna
do in the following year.
So you're always maybe two yearsbehind your activities.
And so knowing what works andwhat doesn't work is, is a bit
anecdotal at best and maybe lessthan scientific, but it still
helps.
And it helps neighbors.
(31:46):
Uh, I will add a little bit tothis, to this picture.
I am, uh, the I'm on theconservation district board for
now Lara county.
And I am looking at this from alocal producer's perspective and
saying, how can we utilize goodpractice to get more financially
(32:07):
sustainable farm main going inthe county so that we meet
multiple objectives and thoseobjectives are sustainable
farming, but also our municipalpartners are looking for
improved nutrients in therivers, improved air quality,
improved water, quality,improved, open space view sheds.
And so I think we can achieve alot of these things that if we
(32:29):
start to incentivize farmers todo it, but we also need to, we
need to be slow and methodicalabout it, because if you just
start incentivizing farmers todo practices like cover crops,
or like no till, or like reducedtill, or like nutrient
management, you have to kind ofhave a plan on how that works
(32:51):
and how, what works and whatdoesn't and what crops work and
what crops don't and what kindof precision agriculture you
need to incorporate and whatkind of impacts they're gonna
have throughout the life cycleof that practice.
And, uh, we're looking at it andsaying how, if we can establish
some of these best practicesthat are backed by on the ground
data, like what Elizabeth iscollecting, then it's simpler to
(33:16):
start accepting those bestmanagement practices than moving
them into the field and saying,yes, this is why we do this is
it shows improvements.
And then our partners in themunicipalities can utilize some
of that benefit to theiradvantage, like nutrient trading
in a river.
So they don't have to spend somuch money to improve their
(33:36):
wastewater treatment plant.
The farmers can, uh, reduce someof the nutrients on the river
just by doing better practicesthat then kind of help pay for
those practices.
So I see it in a bigger lightthan just my own, but it's been,
it's fun to also learn on my ownand figure it out.
And I, and I have a, a differentperspective to farming than most
(33:57):
generational farmers.
I don't have a grandfather or afather that's gonna roll over in
his grave.
If I don't do something the wayhe did it.
And I, and I don't do it on theday, he did it.
And that's a big struggle for alot of farmers in my generation
that it's hard to, to makechanges in an operation because
(34:19):
grandpa might come outta thegrave and thank me on the rear
end for doing that.
And, and it's a hard thing forthose guys to do.
Um, and I have that, thatbenefit of not having that, that
in over my head.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yeah,
Speaker 5 (34:34):
Zach, you just really laid out kind of a, a vision
that you have for the area, andthen both you and Elizabeth have
a very clear plan and thinkrealistically about it takes
time to, to make these changes,to build the trust, to gather
the data.
I really appreciate you takingthe time to, to talk to us both
about your operation, Zach, and,and then both of you the, on the
(34:58):
bigger picture of how theproject is going in Colorado.
So thank you very much forjoining us.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Thanks.
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
All right.
Have a great day.
Thanks a lot.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
All right.
You too.
Thanks.
Both of you.
We'll be following up.
Bye.
Speaker 6 (35:14):
Thank you for listening to fresh growth.
We hope you enjoyed this episodefor more information on Western
Sarah grants and our learningresources visit Western
sarah.org.
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