Soil Science
Advanced testing for soil, microbes, and plant health
Technology Meets Soil Science
Integrating Advanced Diagnostics and Ecological Principles in Regenerative Agriculture
Regenerative agriculture has transitioned from an emergent concept to a scientifically validated and systematically applicable framework. Global functional models now provide robust platforms for empirical investigation, enabling the replication of successful outcomes and the iterative refinement of agricultural practices through the scientific method.
Contemporary regenerative agricultural methodologies leverage advanced diagnostic tools and precision technologies for the precise stewardship of agroecosystems:
Comprehensive Soil Analysis: Soil assessments now encompass over 30 distinct parameters, further augmented by analyses of the soil solution to quantify plant-available nutrient concentrations.
Physiological Plant Monitoring: Plant tissue and sap analyses provide real-time insights into nutrient assimilation and overall physiological status.
Microbial Community Profiling: Advanced microbial profiling techniques, including DNA sequencing (e.g., 16S rRNA, ITS), elucidate the structural and functional attributes of the soil microbiome, guiding targeted interventions to optimize the soil food web and inform the use of specific biological inoculants.
Carbon Sequestration Management: Strategic management of the carbon cycle is employed to enhance stable soil carbon fractions, thereby improving soil fertility and bolstering climate resilience.
Optimized Input Regimes: Data-driven input optimization strategies, facilitated by Variable Rate Technology (VRT) and GPS-guided equipment, minimize off-site nutrient runoff and environmental impact while maximizing resource use efficiency through precise application of amendments.
Advanced Plant Health Metrics: Comprehensive plant health assessments, including analyses of heavy metal accumulation, nutrient density, phenolic compounds, and organic acids, support the cultivation of nutritionally superior crops.
Remote Sensing and GIS Integration: Satellite and drone imagery (multispectral, hyperspectral) monitor crop health and identify stress early, while Geographic Information Systems (GIS) integrate diverse data layers (soil, yield, topography) to create precise management zones.
Advanced Water Management: In-situ soil moisture sensors and evapotranspiration (ET) modeling optimize irrigation schedules, ensuring water conservation and efficient delivery.
Predictive Analytics: Farm Management Software (FMS) integrates these data streams, utilizing AI and machine learning algorithms to provide predictive insights for disease prevention, yield forecasting, and tailored regenerative practice recommendations.
Targeted Biocontrol and Biostimulants: The application of specific beneficial organisms for pest and disease control, alongside advanced biostimulants (e.g., humic substances, seaweed extracts, microbial inoculants), further enhances plant resilience and growth through natural biological pathways.
These innovations collectively contribute to the development of healthier, more resilient plant systems, consequently reducing the reliance on synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides. However, the accelerating pace of scientific discovery necessitates robust knowledge transfer mechanisms to empower agricultural practitioners.
Initiatives such as ORCA are pivotal in this endeavor. By convening leading experts in soil science, plant physiology, microbiology, and ecological farming, ORCA develops curricula designed to equip the next generation of farmers. This commitment to translating cutting-edge research into actionable, hands-on training ensures that regenerative agriculture remains not only economically viable but also at the forefront of agricultural innovation.
Inspiring Resources
The paper that inspired us all
An outstanding paper from CDFA Soil Diversity in California Agriculture
“A declining soil fertility, due to a lack of organic material, major elements, and trace minerals, is responsible for poor crops and in turn for pathological conditions in animals fed deficient feeds from such soils, and humans are no exception.” — This quote captures Albrecht’s core belief that soil health is the foundation of all health
Soil Insights
Advanced testing to reveal soil health and microbial life.
Microbial Check
Identifying beneficial microbes that support soil vitality.
FAQs
What is soil testing?
Regenerative soil testing is a comprehensive approach that goes beyond conventional soil analysis, focusing on the biological, chemical, and physical properties of your soil to provide a complete picture of its health. It aims to reveal how your soil functions as a living ecosystem, rather than just reporting static nutrient levels.
This type of testing often includes:
Biological indicators: Measuring microbial activity, fungal-to-bacterial ratios, and other signs of a thriving soil food web, which are crucial for nutrient cycling and soil structure.
Organic matter assessment: Looking at both total organic matter and its active, more readily available fractions, vital for soil fertility and water retention.
Water infiltration and aggregation: Understanding how well your soil can absorb and hold water, and how stable its structure is.
Nutrient availability and cycling: Assessing not just total nutrients, but how much is actually available to plants and how efficiently they are being cycled by the soil biology.
The goal is to provide actionable insights to build healthier, more resilient soil that supports productive crops with fewer external inputs, ultimately improving your land's long-term health and your farm's profitability.
Why test plant tissue or plant sap?
While soil tests tell you what's in the soil, plant tissue and sap analysis tell you what your plants are actually taking up and using.
Plant Tissue Analysis:
Confirms Nutrient Uptake: It shows you which nutrients have successfully moved from the soil into the plant. This helps you verify if your soil fertility program is working as intended.
Identifies Past Deficiencies: Tissue tests reflect the nutrient status of the plant over a period of time, helping you identify historical nutrient issues that might be impacting growth or yield.
Guides Future Decisions: By understanding what nutrients your plants have accumulated, you can make more informed decisions about future fertilizer applications.
Plant Sap Analysis:
Real-Time Nutrient Status: This is a cutting-edge method that provides a snapshot of the mobile nutrients currently circulating in the plant's sap. This means you see what's available for immediate use, not just what's stored.
Early Detection of Imbalances: Sap analysis can detect nutrient deficiencies or excesses much earlier than visual symptoms appear—often weeks in advance. This gives you a critical window to intervene before problems impact plant health and yield.
Reveals Nutrient Movement: By comparing sap from older leaves (which show what the plant has been accumulating) with newer leaves (which show what's currently being supplied), you can understand how efficiently nutrients are moving throughout the plant. This is key for identifying nutrient tie-ups or antagonisms.
Proactive Management: With this early and precise information, you can make timely foliar feeding or fertigation adjustments, ensuring your plants have exactly what they need, when they need it. This proactive approach can significantly reduce pest and disease pressure, improve crop quality, and maximize yields.
In essence, both tissue and sap analysis provide crucial insights that complement your soil testing, allowing for a much more precise and responsive nutrient management strategy. Sap analysis, in particular, offers a dynamic, real-time view that empowers you to fine-tune your crop nutrition with unparalleled accuracy.
How does microbial testing help?
Microbial testing and management are incredibly beneficial to regenerative agriculture because they help us understand and nurture the unseen workforce in our soil: the microbes. Think of your soil as a bustling city, and the microbes are its essential citizens – the builders, the recyclers, and the service providers.
Here's why focusing on them is a game-changer:
Unlocking Nutrients: Soil tests give us a snapshot of mineral levels, but they don't tell us what's actually available to your plants. Microbes are the key to unlocking these nutrients. They act as the plant's external digestive system, breaking down organic matter and minerals into forms plants can easily absorb. By understanding your microbial community, you can manage it to make the most of the nutrients already in your soil, reducing your reliance on synthetic fertilizers.
Building Soil Structure: Microbes, especially fungi, are like the engineers of the soil. They create glues and networks that bind soil particles together, improving soil structure. This leads to better water infiltration, aeration, and reduced erosion. Microbial testing can show you if your soil has the right builders for a resilient structure.
Boosting Plant Immunity: Just like humans, plants have an immune system. A diverse and thriving microbial community around the roots (the rhizosphere) acts as a natural defense, helping plants resist pests and diseases. When plants are well-fed by microbes, they produce more energy and can better defend themselves, meaning fewer issues with bugs and blight.
Driving Carbon Sequestration: Microbes play a crucial role in the carbon cycle. They help convert atmospheric carbon into stable forms within the soil, building organic matter. This not only makes your soil more fertile but also contributes to mitigating climate change. Managing for a healthy microbial population means you're actively building soil carbon.
Reducing Input Costs: When your soil biology is thriving, it does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. This means you can often reduce your need for purchased fertilizers, pesticides, and even irrigation, leading to significant cost savings and improved profitability.
In essence, microbial testing and management allow you to work with nature, rather than against it. It's about creating a balanced, vibrant ecosystem in your soil that supports healthy, productive plants and a more sustainable, profitable farm. It's about making farming fun again by seeing the natural systems do the work they are designed to do.
Think of soil testing as getting a regular check-up for your farm. Just like your own health, what you're looking for and how often you check can vary. While some might suggest testing every 3-5 years, in regenerative agriculture, we often find that a more frequent and strategic approach gives you the best insights for continuous improvement and profitability.
Here's a breakdown of how often to test and why:
The "Standard" Check-Up: Every 2-3 Years
For general monitoring and maintaining good soil health, a comprehensive soil test every two to three years is a solid baseline. This allows you to:
Track Trends: See how your nutrient levels, pH, and organic matter are changing over time. Are your regenerative practices building soil health, or do you need to adjust?
Plan Ahead: Get a good idea of your soil's overall fertility to help plan your crop rotations and long-term nutrient management strategies.
Catch Major Shifts: Identify any significant deficiencies or excesses before they become major problems.
The "Intensive Care" Plan: Annually or More Frequently
If you're actively working to improve your soil, dealing with specific challenges, or growing high-value crops, more frequent testing can be incredibly valuable:
Before Planting (Annually): This is an excellent time to assess your soil's fertility at its "best" – after residues have decomposed and before the new crop draws heavily on nutrients. It allows you to fine-tune your fertilizer applications for the upcoming season, ensuring your plants have what they need from the start.
During the Growing Season (As Needed): For high-value crops or when you observe signs of stress, a mid-season test can help diagnose nutrient deficiencies that might be limiting yield. This allows for timely in-season corrections.
After Harvest (Annually): Testing in the fall helps you understand what nutrients your crop removed from the soil. This information is crucial for planning your fall amendments and preparing for the next growing season, ensuring you replenish what was used.
When Making Significant Changes: If you're implementing new practices like heavy cover cropping, adding large amounts of organic amendments, or switching to no-till, more frequent testing (e.g., annually for the first few years) can help you monitor the impact of these changes and adjust as needed.
Targeting Trace Elements: While not always necessary with every test, if you're focusing on balancing specific trace elements for optimal plant health, more frequent checks can be beneficial.
Key Considerations for All Testing:
Consistency is Key: Always try to sample at the same time of year and at approximately the same soil moisture content. This allows for "apples-to-apples" comparisons and helps you accurately track changes over time.
Sample Depth Matters: For conventional tillage, samples are typically taken from the plow layer (6-10 inches). In no-till or perennial systems, sampling the top few inches is crucial as nutrients often accumulate there. If you're looking at deeper-rooted crops or specific issues like nitrates, subsoil samples might be necessary.
Representative Samples: Collect composite samples from multiple locations across a uniform area of your field. Avoid unusual spots like old fence lines, wet areas, or fertilizer bands.
Map Your Fields: Keep accurate records and maps of your sampling locations. This ensures you can return to the same spots year after year for consistent data.
The bottom line: Soil testing is a powerful diagnostic tool. The more frequently and intelligently you use it, the better you can understand your soil, make informed decisions, and ultimately build a more resilient and profitable farming system. Always run your specific testing plan by your local ag advisor to ensure it fits your unique situation and goals.
How often should I test soil?
What technology do you use?
In regenerative farming, we embrace a blend of ancient wisdom and cutting-edge technology, all aimed at working with nature to build healthy soil and resilient farms. It's not about replacing natural processes but enhancing our understanding and ability to support them.
Here are some key technologies and approaches we use:
Understanding the Unseen: Soil Biology & Chemistry
Advanced Soil Testing: Beyond basic NPK, we use comprehensive soil analyses that look at:
Biological Activity: Tests for microbial biomass, respiration, and enzyme activity to understand the living part of the soil. This tells us how active and diverse the microbial community is.
Mineral Balancing: Detailed analysis of trace minerals and their ratios, which are crucial for plant immunity and nutrient density. We're looking for balance, not just quantity.
Soil Structure Indicators: Measurements like aggregate stability and water infiltration rates to assess the physical health of the soil.
Sap Analysis: This is like a blood test for plants. By analyzing the sap, we can see exactly what nutrients the plant is taking up and what it's struggling with in real-time. This allows for precise, in-season foliar feeding to correct deficiencies before they impact yield or quality, rather than guessing based on soil alone.
Microbial Inoculants & Biostimulants: These aren't "fertilizers" in the traditional sense, but rather products that introduce beneficial microbes or stimulate existing ones. They can enhance nutrient cycling, improve stress tolerance, and boost plant growth naturally.
Precision & Observation: Tools for Informed Decisions
Remote Sensing & Satellite Imagery: Drones and satellites provide aerial views of fields, highlighting variations in plant health, water stress, or nutrient deficiencies. This helps us identify problem areas and target interventions precisely, reducing waste.
GPS & Precision Application Equipment: While often associated with conventional farming, GPS-guided planters, sprayers, and spreaders are invaluable in regenerative systems for:
Cover Cropping: Precisely planting diverse cover crop mixes.
Targeted Amendments: Applying compost, biologicals, or specific nutrients only where needed, optimizing resource use.
Strip-Tillage/No-Till: Ensuring accurate planting without disturbing the soil structure.
Weather Stations & Soil Moisture Sensors: Understanding microclimates and real-time soil moisture levels helps with efficient irrigation management, preventing over or under-watering, and optimizing planting and harvesting times.
Data Management & Analytics Software: Collecting and analyzing data from soil tests, sap analyses, yield maps, and weather patterns helps us make sense of complex interactions and refine our regenerative strategies over time. It allows us to see what's working and what needs adjustment.
Working with Nature: Enhancing Natural Processes
No-Till/Minimum Tillage Equipment: Specialized planters and drills that can seed directly into cover crops or previous crop residues without disturbing the soil structure, protecting microbial habitats and organic matter.
Managed Grazing Systems (e.g., Mob Grazing): While not a "technology" in the electronic sense, the science behind carefully planned rotational grazing, often aided by portable fencing and water systems, is a powerful regenerative tool. It mimics natural grazing patterns, building soil, sequestering carbon, and improving pasture health.
Compost & Composting Systems: From simple piles to advanced aerated static piles or vermicomposting, these systems transform organic waste into nutrient-rich, microbe-dense soil amendments.
The goal with all these technologies is to gain a deeper understanding of our farm ecosystems and make more informed, precise decisions that support the natural processes of regeneration. It's about being better stewards of the land and building truly resilient and profitable agricultural systems.
“Essentially, all life depends upon the soil… There can be no life without soil and no soil without life; they have evolved together.” — Dr. Charles E. Kellogg, USDA Soil Scientist