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One Farmer’s Regenerative Journey: Part 2

UnderstandingAg

For the past 40 years, our farm was in a hay, pasture and cereal grain rotation. Local practices included moldboard plowing to reseed perennial hay fields and as part of the plowing procedure, it is common to place drainage furrows with a plow on 30-60-feet centers. At first, I thought this was what I needed to do.

Plowing 74
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Meet the Ranchers Trying to Restore Grasslands

Modern Farmer

In the spring, Steward moves her cattle out to pastures that have rested over the winter, but by the long heat of the summer, she’s wary of the ground getting too hot and baking, so she maintains a good litter cover while moving her cattle into shaded areas. million acres of grasslands across the Canadian and US Great Plains were plowed over.

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Watching Grass Grow … From Space

Modern Farmer

Last year, Planet and Organic Valley completed a pilot program using satellite imagery to evaluate pasture health in service of regenerative rotational grazing. My father initially started off plowing with a horse, and here we are talking about using satellite data to measure grass at home. Agriculture is no exception.

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Seeing the Farm with Fresh Eyes

ATTRA

When he dug deeper (literally) he saw that the soils farmers were working with had an impenetrable plow pan layer about 6 inches below the surface, so the cotton plant roots could not access the nutrients they needed, even though the nutrients were present. The soil had lost its structure because of the way it was being managed.

Farming 52
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GRASS MANAGEMENT         

The Lunatic Farmer

From a distance, the field looked like it had been plowed. Stockman Grass Farmer is the world's leading publication dedicated to pastured livestock production and it has been my compass of direction and fount of inspiration for 40 years. A few years ago we turned a 15-acre field into slurry with 500 head during a spring snow melt.

Plowing 52
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Can Taller Cover Crops Help Clean the Water in Farm Country?

Civil Eats

Since the 1940s , oats, wheat, hay, and pasture have been replaced by a duoculture of corn and soybeans. Farmers would often plow the cover under early in the spring before it could provide optimal soil health benefits, and USDA restrictions didn’t allow much flexibility.

Crop 121
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How sustainable farming is paying off for Australian farmers

Agritecture Blog

While government schemes financially incentivize planting trees and other vegetation in order to capture carbon on fallow fields, farmers are also finding that native pasture and grasses are more resilient to drought and overgrazing.

Farming 52