The following is an article excerpted from the book From the Ground Up  – How the science of soils is creating a new and sustainable agriculture” by Deac Jones and edited by Roger Bloom and shared here with permission.  The book is available for purchase on Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats.

Organic Matter is Key to Improving Crop Margins

Many of our farms have declined to 1% or less organic matter in their soils. That’s alarming when the pasture land right next door likely has 5–6% organic matter. In my past newsletters, I’ve addressed over-tillage, lack of cover crops, and high-intensity (chemical-dependent) farming, all contributing to the degradation of the soil so it fails to function properly. When the soil can’t function, even more synthetic fertilizers are required just to keep the crop growing.

Nature is available to help. Biologically active soils allow minerals to be mined faster and across wider spans, mitigate soil diseases, hold more water, store and hold nutrients longer, improve drainage, and do many other good things better. Seems like something everyone would want to take advantage of. We witness some of the biggest crop gains when organic products are combined with conventional products and practices. Simply put, there’s considerable room for much improvement.

One gram of dirt can contain 6 to 10 million organisms. Without them, nothing would grow. The microorganisms are after carbon. Plant roots will leak out carbon compounds that attract the microorganisms. In exchange, the microbes break down organic matter in the soil, which delivers nitrogen and phosphate in a form that the plant can use. The amount of C02 is directly proportional to how healthy that soil is. When you farm in ways that release carbon (tilling), or you don’t try to retain carbon (i.e., with cover cropping), or over-application of synthetic nitrogen causes microbes to rip out and destroy carbon, soils will continue to wane.

Here’s the kicker — building up your organic matter in your soil will save you money in the long term, as you won’t need as much fertilizer as your soil improves. And the good news is that soil will come back if you give it a chance. It is very robust and resilient. We are only at the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we understand about how soil functions and its biology. However, for a host of reasons, we do know that more carbon in the soil is a good thing.

Good soil for plant growth consists of about half solid material (mostly mineral but with a crucial organic component) and half pore spaces filled with varying proportions of water and air. If we take the time to learn how to better improve our terrestrial resources, the soil will return the favor and take care of us.

About the Author

Deac J. Jones grew up working on a ranch in Boise, Idaho, and attended college at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. After finishing graduate school at University of San Francisco, he worked in Southeast Asia for many years establishing sales and distribution channels for agricultural products, working for Connell Bros. Company, the overseas division of Wilbur-Ellis Company.

After returning from Asia, Mr. Jones worked in technology for several years before finding his place in the world again, in agriculture. Having worked with a real agriculture visionary in his career, Dr. James Erickson, the founder of Ecotech, LLC, Mr. Jones was looking for products that have real-world success in their application and do not threaten the health of agricultural workers or the environment in which they work. It was early 2008 and there was a developing groundswell for the application of more naturally derived products. Mr. Jones founded Andaman Ag Corporation, named after the Andaman Sea, an area of the world that he loves and spent years diving as a master diver.

The purpose of Andaman Ag was to bring together a host of naturally derived products that could complement each other in their applications — products that support healthy soils and the biological processes taking place in the plant world. Andaman Ag, like most companies putting forward new technology and new methodology, is about education more than anything else. The weekly newsletter that it produces to educate growers on the biological practices is the genesis of the book, From the Ground Up.

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