Soil Health at Dyson Farming

What are some examples of regenerative agricultural practices?

· Minimise soil disturbance -> reduced intensity/number of cultivations & controlled traffic farming

· Keep the surface covered -> chopped straw, composts & digestate

· Keep living roots in the soil -> catch crops, cover crops & perennial crops

· Crop diversity -> wide rotation, different varieties, herbal leys & agroforestry

· Livestock integration -> grazing cover crops, leys and permanent pasture. OM/available nitrogen re-deposited back to soil, improving structure. But must be rotated/managed well, to avoid trampling/compaction or overgrazing.

What are 4 beneficial climate-resilient traits that should be bred into crop roots?

1) Deeper rooting

2) Enhanced branching plasticity

3) Higher root hair density

4) Increased compaction tolerance

What is a significant risk of leaching? Elaborate

Nitrate pollution!

- 55% of land in England is at risk, especially in nitrate vulnerable zones

- There are application limits for organic manures... you have to plan all applications of nitrogen and keep records

What is a more sustainable solution to nitrate leaching? How does this work?

Use of Stabilised Amine Nitrogen (SAN) fertilisers.

They use urease or bacterial inhibitors to stabilise urea

- Improves NUE (less leaching)

- Nitrate takes 12x more energy than SAN to convert to protein.

How can efficiency of cover crops vary spatially?

1) Yield effects of cover crops depends on climate

- In cooler climates, benefits are driven by soil structural improvement, N retention & reduced leaching

- E.g. conventional tillage is a lot more effective in southern than northern Europe.

2) Efficiency depends on soil type

- Cover crops are hard to manage/establish in clay soils, having minimal positive effects

- They are much more beneficial in lighter soils (esp sandy loam)

What is a disadvantage of cover crops?

Cover crops and their residues can harbour disease that is passed directly to the cash crop

Types of carry-over:

. Green bridge direct transmission = transmission from living cover host tissue to cash crop. Caused by drilling into cover crops or insufficient termination

. Residue-borne transmission = pathogen survives on residues of terminated cover, remaining near the soil surface. Infection then passed onto emerging crop

. Soil-borne amplification = infection of cover crop roots enables multiplication of pathogens, increasing inoculum density for the following crop

. Vector mediated transmission = insect vectors acquire infection from cover host and survive on the cover crop. They then transmit disease to the emerging crop.

What are some examples of soil health assessments?

· pH and nutrients

· Organic matter

· Texture

· CO2 burst test or microbial biomass

· Soil structure and water relations

These are fed into an algorithm to determine a soil health score.

What rules must be followed for farmers to claim for stewardship schemes or farm woodland payments?

GAEC = good agricultural & environmental conditions

SMR = statutory management requirements

GAEC 1: Establishment of buffer strips along water courses

GAEC 2: Water abstraction

GAEC 3: Groundwater

GAEC 4: Provide minimum soil cover

GAEC 5: Minimise soil erosion

GAEC 6: Maintain the level of organic matter

SMR 1: Nitrate vulnerable zones

How do governmental figures encourage unprofitable sustainable practices in farms?

Financial support payments!

Flawed system? Lower yield boosting sustainability approaches such as herbal leys have £224 in payments, but for legume fallows, which are very efficient and farmers would probably use anyway, you get over twice as much (£593).

What is another sustainability standard that farms are held to?

Red tractor standards

- For combinable crops & sugar beet, and fresh produce standards

- e.g. maintaining soil structure & conserving soil OM.