As seen in Farm Weekly, 20/04/2023

One common asset on every farm is our soil.

The soil will be different from farm to farm, paddock to paddock, grain or livestock, we all rely on our soils.

With regards to our equipment, we maintain, fix and look to trade it in for something with less hours and more power.

Our soils do not give us that option.

Regenerative agriculture is a way of managing your farm to build up the soil resilience, building soil organic matter, increasing soil carbon, supporting soil microbes and reducing the production risk.

This relies on agronomy, not repeated chemical applications to address problems.

Modern chemical agronomy conflicts with how our soils were created.

They were created through biology that drives chemical and physical changes creating soil, not the other way around.

Some of the basics of regenerative agriculture are to maintain a living root in the soil, increase plant diversity, reduce tillage, minimise the reliance on synthetic inputs and livestock integration.

Different sources use different language like maintaining soil armour, but that can be included in reduced tillage and a living root in the soil.

A living root in the soil

Having a living root is important to feed our soil microbes.

A living root will leak out root exudates in different forms signalling orders to the soil microbes.

These microbes will be ordered to find nutrients, fend off attacks, and other tasks the plant cannot do for itself.

The soil microbes need a safe place to live so they create homes, this is what we refer to as soil structure.

These aggregates will allow good air exchange, water infiltration, water retention, nutrient exchange, easy root movement and resist erosion.

Plant diversity

Plant diversity is something most fields have lost, especially on the cropping side as we rely on growing monocultures, or very simple mixes.

A key to plant diversity is to utilise different functional plant families: grass, legume, Brassica, non-Brassica and forbs.

Within each group there are warm and cool season species with annual, biennial and perennial options in each of those.

These plants fit a role in the plant ecosystem, each has a strength to help build our soils.

Having these functional plant groups present within a rotation goes a long way to help minimise weeds, nutrient deficiencies and disease outbreaks.

Irwin Hunter & Co has a wide range of quality pasture seed and specialist pasture mixes that have been created and blended to assist in the regeneration of our soils and to help target individual farmers’ requirements and needs and are successfully grown all across WA.

Our range of mixes which include Cover Crop Plus (with both a winter and summer version), Self Regeneration Mix, SouWest, Interow Mix and Maximix, all have a diverse selection of species which if allowed to come to seed in spring provide excellent choices for farmers looking seriously at regenerative agriculture.

We can also Mix & Match to your requirements giving you the option to combine a mix of various pasture species that is suited to your needs.

Irwin Hunter & Co have one of the widest ranges of pasture species in Western Australia that can assist you in creating as diverse a mix as you want.

Reduced tillage

Tillage has been around agriculture for centuries.

We rely on tillage to get seeds into the soil, remove competition from plants we do not want growing, and to manage the trash from the last crop.

In reality, we want to maintain a good soil cover as it keeps the soil cooler, reducing evaporation and allows the microbes to survive.

As the temperature increases in the soil, more water evaporates and microbes start to die.

Tillage destroys soil aggregation so we start seeing issues with water infiltration, soil erosion and soil compaction.

Mycorrhizal fungi are very sensitive to disturbance, so the tillage will destroy the hyphae, making them regrow, which is a relatively slow process.

Livestock integration

Livestock integration is a natural process in soil building.

Having animals graze plants, then allowing the plants to recover before being grazed again is how the world’s soils were built.

Grazing stimulates plant regrowth, allowing more root exudates to be released and the manure and urine from the animals are in a plant and microbe friendly form to stimulate new growth.

When confronted about the damage that livestock do to the soil, the saying “it is not the cow, it is the how” rings true.

Properly managed grazing builds soil.

Regenerative agriculture principles can be used in combination with each other.

Not all need to be exercised to have a positive impact on the soil.

There are some great Western Australian producers doing excellent work building soil and are happy to share their systems with people.

The biggest thing is to do something to invoke change.

Written with the assistance of Kevin Elmy CPAg, a leading expert in the field of regenerative agriculture and cover crops and has been working regeneratively in western Canada since 2000.

Kevin started using cover crops in 2007 on their seed production farm and started Cover Crops Canada in 2012 where they were retailing cover crop seed across western Canada.

Kevin has experience coaching producers how to make cover cropping work on their farms in Canada and here in WA and is the author of Cover Cropping in western Canada and has done numerous articles on the topic.

Contact your local farm supplier or Irwin Hunter & Co for more information regarding its extensive range of pasture seed and mixes.