Alternative nutrition

holds the answersSoil

How can farming meet the planet’s burgeoning sustainability challenge? Farmers Club member Marshall Taylor provides a poignant perspective

THE Government’s strategy to combat climate change by announcing a swift end to fossil fuel use without identifying a clear replacement policy puts the responsibility for delivering a solution firmly onto the shoulders of farmers and land managers.

If we are not to increase the uninhabitable regions, destroy ever more species and take more natural habitat under cultivation we will need large-scale sequestration of atmospheric carbon.

This will put profit back into farming, reverse global warming and provide many other benefits to humanity. If we are to feed nine billion inhabitants by 2050 we have no other option.

While our scientists learn more and more about less and less, as they drill ever deeper into their specialisms, it is the applied and integrated biology of a revived soil biome from our grandparents’ era that tomorrow’s farmers will revert to, and apply even more skillfully for crop and forage production, if they are to survive.

Aside from methane, which decomposes over a dozen years, fossil fuel consumption has accounted for at least 229 billion tonnes of carbon in the 850 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide now in the atmosphere.

Farming’s role

Agriculture is responsible for a huge proportion of that greenhouse gas by destroying the microsystems and soil organic matter (OM), which is approx. 50% carbon, with cultivations that have oxidized it away and replaced its nutrient value with synthetic fertiliser bearing a considerable carbon footprint of its own.

The resulting crop yield has come at a very heavy environmental price, delivering food of lower nutritional value and of lower wholesale price set by supermarkets.

Soils that once held 8-12% OM are now frequently found to have under 3% OM, a legacy of ploughing without integrated livestock. They will take a decade or more to correct.

Nutrients from destroyed microsystems and associated organic matter have been replaced by a reliance on synthetic fertilisers and chemical herbicides as farms try to offset low produce prices with higher yields.

Input savings

By rediscovering Albrecht farm practices, which this second agricultural (chemical) revolution bulldozed aside in the 1960s, agriculture can reverse global warming, as well as reduce reliance on synthetic sprays and fertilisers, so cutting input costs.

Such a change makes a farming profit more likely. Without it the Government will fail in its responsibility for protecting the strategic food supply.

In an age when profits must come first, stewarding the land and its wildlife can only succeed by achieving an adequate return on investment. These two points are not accounted for in current plans to change farm production subsidies into conservation payments.

The public still lives in a post-war cheap food era, following the abolition of the farmer marketing boards. Without a re-balancing

Marshall Taylor

Marshall grew up in Cheshire and Lancashire on the family’s farms, starting with 28 Ayrshires on 25 acres of silty clay meadows bursting with wild flowers and a huge range of birdlife, all without artificial fertilizer. He attended Harper Adams, chaired the TFA and helped restructure the Min of Justice Land Tribunal. The family now runs a dairy herd on the Somerset Crown Estate, while Marshall runs a bespoke soil advisory service for equestrians.

Volis Farm, Hestercombe, Somerset marshall@volis.co.uk

of profit margins across the food chain, supplies to the supermarkets will also fail, along with many farm businesses, with investment diverting off-farm and Government responsibility for a strategic food supply will fail.

Building a ‘re-wilded rural idyll’ without a flourishing agricultural sector will deprive the nation of a safe source of food and further reduce wildlife populations as the countryside reverts to an impenetrable bramble patch.

It isn’t just a case of an enthusiastic Jeremy Clarkson having to face the reality of a mere £100 profit on his appropriately named ‘Diddly Squat’ farm. Nor of Sir James Dyson openly declaring his huge investment on the largest farming block in England to show a huge loss on his bottom line.

Impending recession

Bank interest rates will overtake depreciation rates as both increase through the impending recession and farmers who expanded by managing their neighbours’ rolling acres will continue to hand them back as ‘survival’ becomes the only watchword.

So how to avoid this collapse? “The answer lies in the soil,” as pioneering gardener Percy Thrower said in the 1950s. More recently TV program maker Rebecca Pow used it as a banner in her career before becoming an MP and now Under Secretary of State for the Environment.

The Albrecht/Kinsey scientific approach originated from research by Professor William Albrecht (1890-1974), Head of Agriculture at the University of Missouri. Neal Kinsey, one of his pupils, now has a global practice as the consultant’s consultant, and is dubbed ‘the dirt man’ in Australia!

Three keys

The first requirement of this approach is to maintain the physical state of the soil, to provide an encouraging environment for its second focus, a flourishing soil microsystem, to build organic matter, comprising approximately 50% carbon, sequestered as humus. It also mineralises soil nutrients for uptake by plant roots.

Exudates from plant roots and microbes, together with decomposing material from both sources, and crop debris, add further carbon fertility to the soil. This is achieved by the endeavours of an “immense army of (unpaid) Lilliputian workers” as Andre Voisin said, or ‘little kritters’ as US organic farming scientist Elaine Ingham puts it.

The third requirement is for the farmer to take a soil analysis to balance and supplement nutrient minerals and provide the crop’s feed buffer, including a range of trace elements.

Crucially, account is taken of electrical charges in the soil. Suffice to say ‘cations’ have a stronger positive static electric charge than weaker hydrogen ions, which they displace, to saturate the negative-charged soil colloids, thus ensuring a suitable soil pH and reduce nutrient leaching.

The carbon benefits could be considerable. By building soil organic matter from say 3% up to 8%, which can be done over time, sourced from crop growth, root and crop debris, added compost, farmyard manure (composted too) or incorporated cover crops, farmland could sequester 100t/ha of organic matter (equivalent to 50t/ha carbon), hugely impacting atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

Fortunately, there are a scattering of Albrecht soil advisors to provide a relevant soil analysis from a few suitable laboratories and able to compute needs for any top-up minerals.

USDA research biologist Dr Mary Lucero (www. endofite.com) focuses on how crop nutrient value impacts human health under the influence of macro and micro soil organisms. Is this the best way to practice preventative medicine; perhaps the only way to make our National Health Service ultimately affordable?

It behoves all farmers and land managers to put carbon back from whence it came, cut back on soluble fertilisers, which so readily leach into our rivers and drinking water systems, grow healthier, robust crops, which need far less spraying, and start to make essential profits. If they do the nation will eat healthier and global warming can be reversed.

CSS SOIL REPORT© 7/2/2022 CATION SOIL SERVICES © Site Name /No. 730062 15 Hectare Client bbT D xxxxxx Contact By: analysis@soiltest.online Field Officer KG Lab Check BAS

Field/Crop Horse Pasture Total Exchange Capacity (TCEC) 17.05

(Proportions Ca :Mg :K :Na) 68 : 12 : 4 : 1

Soil pH (ideal 6.0 to 6.5) 6.8

Organic Matter (OM%) 5.6 A)

C

A

CALCIUM Desired Value 4638 Ca kg/ha Value Found 4748 Deficit/surplus + 110

T

I

O

2 N

K

S

MAGNESIUM Desired Value Mg kg/ha Value Found Deficit/surplus

POTASSIUM Desired Value

K kg/ha Value Found Deficit/surplus

SODIUM Desired Value Na kg/ha Value Found Deficit/surplus 262 491 24 122 608 + 156

533 994 + 461 274 --78 5938 -140 -- 40

6

A N I O N S SULPHUR S p.p.m.

PHOSPHOROUS (P2 ) P kg/ha

NITROGEN ENR Value

N Kg/ha

20

110

392 + 282 -- 114 Available plus Reserves in Kg/Ha Or ppm as found in the sample Sandy Silt Loam (33 : 51 : 16)

CURRENT MINERAL SATURATION deficient low

good

Kieserite 15% Mg; Mag Oxide 48%

Potassium Sulphate 42%P : 18%S

Sea Salt (35%Na + trace elements)

Add TSP (0:46:0); DAP (18:46:00)

Estimate 100 kg N/Ha available in 5% OM aerated soil (USDeptA)

BASE SATURATION % GUIDE

Calcium (60 to 70 %) total of 69.6 Magnesium (20 to 10 %) 80% 14.86 Potassium (2 to 5 %) 7.45 Sodium (0.5 to 3 % but not > K) 0.48 Other Bases (trace elements) 4.6 Exchangeable Hydrogen (10 to 15 %) 3.0

Correcting Ca:Mg ratio releases S from O.M. and assists air & H2O movement through the soil. Biological activity then releases plant nutrients & enables carbon sequestration.

T

R

A

C

E

S Boron p.p.m. Iron p.p.m. Manganese p.p.m. Copper p.p.m. Zinc p.p.m. Cobalt p.p.m. Molybdenum p.p.m. Iodine p.p.m. Selenium p.p.m. 0.84 428 58 4.6 36.6 2.6 0.01

15kg/Ha Solubor as spray in spring 2023 or 2024.

[Deal with trace elements after sorting other main minerals]

Albrecht-Kinsey Base Saturation System; UK & Wageningen University upgrades; Microbiome & human health research by endofite.com (USA co-operator)

APPLICATION RATE GUIDE (Kg/Ha)

high excess

too high DATE/ Kg SPREAD

(Nil)

(Nil)

(Nil)

100 kg/Ha Agric Salt 2023 in springtime (Ammonium sulphate supplies S – see below)

(Nil)

If anticipating a shortage of summer grazing use no more than 100 kg/Ha Ammonium Sulphate (24%S) per application

Chemical Conversions:

2 Kg/Ha = 1 p.p.m. = 2lb/acre = 2 gm/100 sq ft = 20gm/100 sq m P2O5 = 44% P2 K2O = 83% K2

Observations: Slightly heavier soil than /61, of moderate-low inherent fertility and also good supply of nutrients with organic matter compensating for its sandy nature. With higher minerals, don’t add organic matter for next two years. Break any hard pans and seek earthworm count >12 (25cm x 25cm x20cm deep to confirm sufficient microbial activity to mobilise the locked up phosphorus.

Avoid poaching when very wet. (Re-test in spring 2025)

CATION SOIL SERVICES© cannot be held responsible for field treatments beyond its control. We advise using only a consultant qualified in Albrecht/Kinsey Regenerative Soil System or by Wageningen University,to inspect the site and adjust rates/treatment appropriate to the crop, ground condition, funds available, time of year and organic or conventional status. Sufficient productive grass species are presumed in the sward. GDPR – Details are not retained or passed elsewhere, whilst personal data is deleted by 6 months of accounts paid. CSSv2021 © This document is protected by copyright vested in Cation Soil Services .

Soil advocate Rebecca Pow MP, Under Secretary of State for the Environment – “the answer lies in the soil”