Soil Health Summit: Table Discussions

IANR Media Author

11/22/2021 Added

21 Plays

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Recorded Friday, November 19, 2021.

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[00:00:04.290]I did wanna just take a moment for us to look,
[00:00:07.930]look at the results of
[00:00:10.140]the
[00:00:11.850]your input on which practices are field ready.
[00:00:16.620]And I would say that,
[00:00:17.940]as I said to some of my table mates here,
[00:00:21.640]I was a little surprised at the optimism
[00:00:24.670]about integrating perennials in your systems.
[00:00:28.760]And also,
[00:00:30.670]perhaps,
[00:00:32.370]the optimism on
[00:00:35.300]integrating biocarbon,
[00:00:37.100]carbon or biochar.
[00:00:39.210]I would have expected those to be more like 4.5,
[00:00:43.290]but that's just me.
[00:00:44.850]So in these conversations that you're about to have,
[00:00:49.010]you'll have an opportunity to talk about which practices
[00:00:52.790]you think can have the most effect and
[00:00:54.500]what the barriers are to those practices.
[00:00:57.140]So here in a moment, Crystal, will put up those questions
[00:01:02.350]and the format will be that you,
[00:01:06.270]at your tables and we
[00:01:09.340]preselected,
[00:01:10.960]gave you numbers for your tables so that we were
[00:01:14.190]hopefully mixing different perspectives.
[00:01:18.430]But as I look around the room,
[00:01:19.900]I see that some people look pretty lonely.
[00:01:21.860]So you may wanna join some other tables.
[00:01:25.570]And as we get toward the 1:30 mark,
[00:01:29.700]I'll come back and suggest that you begin putting in
[00:01:33.930]maybe from one, but it doesn't matter.
[00:01:35.800]It could be from multiple,
[00:01:36.830]but maybe from one person at your table.
[00:01:39.530]We'll begin putting in your feedback on the answers
[00:01:43.050]to these two questions into the app.
[00:01:46.030]And then in the next 25, 30 minutes after that,
[00:01:50.060]we will put up your responses and we will
[00:01:52.200]have an opportunity with roving mics for
[00:01:56.490]individuals to comment
[00:01:59.390]on what your discussions were at the tables.
[00:02:01.820]And then add some texture to the conversations.
[00:02:05.720]So
[00:02:07.200]if you are by yourself,
[00:02:09.470]you may wanna find a table to join,
[00:02:11.840]or you could just
[00:02:14.900]have a vote of one and not get any,
[00:02:18.940]not get any detractors to your perspective
[00:02:21.680]and go ahead and type it in.
[00:02:23.610]So whatever you prefer.
[00:02:25.780]We will come back around 1:30, 1:35,
[00:02:28.560]and go to the next part of this session.
[00:02:33.190]Okay, if you haven't already done so,
[00:02:34.940]go ahead and type your
[00:02:37.580]responses
[00:02:39.811]into the app.
[00:02:40.840]And in a few minutes here,
[00:02:41.920]we'll start interacting over your answers.
[00:05:35.590]See the input that other folks have put up there.
[00:05:39.960]And we'll let this scroll for a little while so you can,
[00:05:45.070]you can see and then we will pause it.
[00:05:47.990]And
[00:05:49.320]I will ask if
[00:05:51.260]anyone wants to comment on any one
[00:05:53.783]that is on the screen at that time.
[00:05:56.730]Okay, now that you've had some time to look at those,
[00:06:00.730]I was planning to pick one out and ask you to comment on it,
[00:06:04.750]but I think I'll let you pick them out and comment on it.
[00:06:07.780]So has someone seen something that peaked their interest,
[00:06:13.150]either they talked about it at their table, or that
[00:06:17.300]they would like to expand on?
[00:06:19.160]And I used that word expand,
[00:06:22.060]advisedly,
[00:06:23.230]as in maybe two minutes.
[00:06:26.861](audience speaking faintly)
[00:06:31.800]No one wants the mic?
[00:06:38.490]Well, you know how classroom instructors deal with that?
[00:06:42.230](audience laughs)
[00:06:44.980]They call on people.
[00:06:47.970]I wouldn't wanna do that.
[00:06:53.310]So what stood out for some of you in the conversations
[00:06:57.940]that you were having at your table?
[00:07:00.780]As I was looking at these scroll through,
[00:07:03.410]there were certain themes that I was seeing
[00:07:05.430]that had been mentioned earlier today.
[00:07:08.280]One is certainly the economic factor.
[00:07:11.540]It has to pay or can at least not cause a loss.
[00:07:16.500]And then
[00:07:17.970]also the long-term aspect.
[00:07:20.530]And those two things, those two factors,
[00:07:24.490]seemed to be factors that do make it difficult
[00:07:27.950]for some people to make the leap.
[00:07:36.730]There were a couple recurring themes in our group.
[00:07:39.590]One of them was that every field is different.
[00:07:41.300]And so we can't just, you know,
[00:07:44.170]apply one solution across the board to every field.
[00:07:47.970]And so farmers need some assistance in identifying
[00:07:51.860]what practices are going to be appropriate
[00:07:53.540]for their particular field,
[00:07:54.640]given their particular circumstances.
[00:08:00.100]Another thing that came up was that
[00:08:02.974]there can be a delay.
[00:08:03.807]There can be a delay of several years
[00:08:05.780]before you start to see payback.
[00:08:07.130]And so there needs to be some kind of financial incentive
[00:08:10.015]to get you through the transitional period
[00:08:12.850]until your soil health has improved to the point
[00:08:15.840]where you're able to maybe pay that incentive back,
[00:08:19.988]or at least, you know, make profit.
[00:08:24.840]I'm blanking.
[00:08:25.780]There was a third thing I was gonna mention.
[00:08:30.763](man faintly speaking)
[00:08:32.720]Right.
[00:08:33.837]Well, no-till is definitely one of the practices
[00:08:36.450]that could, you know, could be adopted.
[00:08:39.490]But again, depending on the field
[00:08:43.939]and livestock integration was another thing
[00:08:48.386]that could be, you know, could be very beneficial
[00:08:50.790]but there are lots of obstacles to be overcome.
[00:08:53.820]And so farmers need help understanding
[00:08:55.970]how to integrate livestock.
[00:08:58.670]I've taken enough time.
[00:09:01.540]Excellent.
[00:09:02.820]And in the next
[00:09:05.530]round, we will ask you to be really specific
[00:09:08.480]about the barriers and really specific
[00:09:10.350]about how those barriers can be removed.
[00:09:12.860]And I can see from some of the things
[00:09:14.580]that were typed in this time that we also
[00:09:17.910]got into that in this session as well.
[00:09:21.120]So what are some of those practices that you discussed
[00:09:26.810]and how do we encourage adoption?
[00:09:32.011](audience speaking faintly)
[00:09:38.780]We have tables now back there,
[00:09:40.460]encouraging other tables to
[00:09:42.592](audience laughs)
[00:09:43.425]give input.
[00:09:44.570]Okay, here we go.
[00:09:45.560]We have a hand up here.
[00:09:48.460]I'm a better salesman than you are, at least.
[00:09:50.503]I know, I'm sorry.
[00:09:52.800]I'm Kyle from Burt County,
[00:09:54.770]and we talked a lot about manure.
[00:10:00.400]You have pronounced your name but,
[00:10:02.481]Solo.
[00:10:03.520]Solo, has some interesting research on manure
[00:10:06.840]over a long period of time.
[00:10:08.150]You care to tell about that or you want me to?
[00:10:11.370]Well, he's got going back to 1911 and out at Scotts Bluff,
[00:10:15.930]they started a manure program, I think 1942,
[00:10:20.550]all the way to current.
[00:10:22.583]And it was corn-on-corn continuous.
[00:10:24.740]And that corn to date has basically doubled in yield,
[00:10:29.435]comparably, to the non-manure corn.
[00:10:32.900]So there's a lot of variables within that research
[00:10:35.370]that he showed me and you can come find him afterwards.
[00:10:39.320]I can't say all of them right now, but,
[00:10:43.340]and then my experience, I live on a feedlot.
[00:10:46.510]We
[00:10:47.370]apply heavy manure.
[00:10:49.770]Locally, we sell some manure.
[00:10:52.100]And then we have a farm in north of O'Neill, Nebraska,
[00:10:56.240]and anywhere we can find an old yard and get manure.
[00:11:00.550]Those practices have showed over time to be the best yields
[00:11:04.740]that we've seen on any crop,
[00:11:06.770]whether it was alfalfa corn or soybeans.
[00:11:09.840]So that's kinda what our table was, heavy manure.
[00:11:12.370]I don't see it up there.
[00:11:13.290]We tried to get it up there
[00:11:14.340]but didn't get it done, so.
[00:11:20.930]All right, just one comment.
[00:11:22.100]It's bio-based fertilizer.
[00:11:24.521](audience laughs)
[00:11:26.590]At least that's what Jerry got.
[00:11:28.610]And as someone who grew up on a dairy farm,
[00:11:30.780]I hauled a lot of bio-base fertilizer.
[00:11:33.110](audience laughs)
[00:11:36.030]Anyone else?
[00:11:39.410](Crystal speaking faintly)
[00:11:42.610]I gotta be a better salesman than Ron, right?
[00:11:45.020]Anyone? Anyone?
[00:11:49.240]Working the crowd here.
[00:11:51.590]Trying to get someone.
[00:11:52.680]You have a bidder back there.
[00:11:58.240]I can stand up, yes.
[00:12:00.930]One thing
[00:12:02.440]that stood out to us
[00:12:04.760]was more on along the lines of, you know,
[00:12:06.960]how can the adoption be encouraged?
[00:12:09.480]There's a comment, I'm tryna buy a little bit of time
[00:12:12.540]for it to scroll back up so I can read it exactly,
[00:12:14.500]but it says something along the lines of
[00:12:18.380]dumbing down the science
[00:12:20.010]so that the farmers can understand it.
[00:12:22.000]And while the comment is spot on, right,
[00:12:25.620]the delivery is what speaks to the problem.
[00:12:29.030]It's our communication.
[00:12:30.750]Us as scientists, we need to use effective communication,
[00:12:33.820]not dumbing it down.
[00:12:36.010]You know, that's offensive.
[00:12:38.270]And so once we can increase
[00:12:40.010]how effective our communication is,
[00:12:42.160]they're more likely to listen to us
[00:12:44.050]and work with us.
[00:12:45.510]So I just want to throw that in there.
[00:12:47.700]So they'll adopt it then
[00:12:48.670]once we can increase our communication skills.
[00:12:51.880]It's not on the farmer, it's on us, the scientists.
[00:12:56.030]Thanks.
[00:13:05.220]I noticed that there were several that referred to,
[00:13:08.010]something that was referred to earlier in the day,
[00:13:10.680]and that is being able to have some regional,
[00:13:14.670]regionally distributed demonstration farms,
[00:13:17.890]demonstration plots, that were long enough term to show,
[00:13:22.280]begin to show the positive impact of those practices.
[00:13:27.560]There you go.
[00:13:30.353]Some of the observations I think that we had,
[00:13:32.860]and that are growing now, as I listened to others too,
[00:13:35.260]is to two things.
[00:13:37.280]Number one,
[00:13:39.660]we all know when we're hearing and we're continuing
[00:13:42.020]to understand this is a systems approach, right?
[00:13:45.310]I mean, we heard from the Ag engineer
[00:13:46.910]to begin with, that said,
[00:13:47.907]"Hey, I thought as long as I produce the no-till equipment
[00:13:51.020]and we were done, we can get healthy soil?"
[00:13:53.047]"No, well, yeah, you can.
[00:13:55.310]But couple that with cover crops
[00:13:57.950]and cover that with manure management from your barns
[00:14:00.720]and couple that with this at five other things."
[00:14:03.630]So number one, we're understanding more and more,
[00:14:07.030]we've gotta get out of our,
[00:14:08.100]even our conservation silos and say,
[00:14:10.517]"There's a number of practices
[00:14:12.770]that are gonna build soil health."
[00:14:14.850]But number two, probably, the other person that needed
[00:14:16.730]to be here and you're seeing it reflected
[00:14:18.280]in a lot of comments probably should have had
[00:14:20.380]an Ag economist on the stage today with us.
[00:14:23.880]And that Ag economists needs to not again, look at one.
[00:14:28.440]Yeah, here's what you can save if you do no-till.
[00:14:31.660]Well, here's what you can save if you do no-till,
[00:14:33.970]plus if you build your soils to the point
[00:14:37.440]that you can shut off the irrigation system half the time,
[00:14:41.130]because you have better water holding capacity,
[00:14:43.400]and better organic matter, and cation exchange capacity,
[00:14:46.600]and everything, so here's what you save on doing that.
[00:14:50.030]And, "Oh, yeah, if you a cover crop that gets
[00:14:53.140]you another a hundred pounds of nitrogen,
[00:14:55.040]here's what you can save."
[00:14:56.170]So pretty soon the farmer does need
[00:14:58.150]to see that whole system.
[00:15:00.200]And at the end of the day, what's that dollar amount?
[00:15:03.200]And we heard that from the farmers on the stage, right?
[00:15:05.830]And I agree with that.
[00:15:07.560]Farmers are in a business.
[00:15:10.400]They're happy to do anything they can for healthy soils,
[00:15:13.700]or soil conservation, or anything else,
[00:15:16.690]but they're not gonna do it for free.
[00:15:18.700]That's their business.
[00:15:20.390]And so I think we need to really focus on that,
[00:15:23.460]and really focus on the economic standpoint,
[00:15:26.610]but put it all together with that system approach
[00:15:30.480]whenever we're talking,
[00:15:31.590]'cause it is not just one single thing.
[00:15:37.338]Thank you.
[00:15:39.700]Economics are certainly very, very important
[00:15:42.690]and
[00:15:43.600]might
[00:15:44.610]do a little pitch here for the newly minted center
[00:15:48.780]for agricultural profitability.
[00:15:50.400]That is a centered in our Ag Econ department
[00:15:54.220]that was just approved a few months back.
[00:15:56.240]And that's really what they're about.
[00:15:59.340]All these other things we do,
[00:16:01.620]they wanna work with us, and with the farmer,
[00:16:05.570]to identify whether it's profitable.
[00:16:08.850]Because as you said, it's a business.
[00:16:12.120]You can't
[00:16:13.470]subsidize
[00:16:14.870]society's needs by
[00:16:17.070]going bankrupt.
[00:16:18.380]And many farmers have over the years.
[00:16:22.300]Anyone else?
[00:16:29.430]Well, as I say, we'll just move on to the next one,
[00:16:32.130]because we already have begun that conversation here.
[00:16:35.270]And that is a focus.
[00:16:37.340]If you put the next questions up,
[00:16:40.840]Crystal.
[00:16:42.120]Is really a focus on barriers and how those barriers
[00:16:46.430]can be removed, and specific ideas on how those barriers
[00:16:51.320]can be removed, and, specific, what are those barriers?
[00:16:55.920]As I said, we've already began to touch on that.
[00:16:58.960]So let's just move into that,
[00:17:01.010]that discussion.
[00:17:02.570]And I will.
[00:17:05.600]And so this will be helpful for us here at the University,
[00:17:08.800]as we look toward deploying resources
[00:17:12.610]in the
[00:17:13.520]years ahead.
[00:17:15.150]But I think it will also inform you because I know some of
[00:17:19.100]you represent government agencies,
[00:17:23.020]some of you represent
[00:17:25.650]NGOs.
[00:17:27.250]So that be an opportunity for you to see
[00:17:29.670]what the participants today are thinking.
[00:17:34.040]So with the
[00:17:36.650]comments that are scrolling on the screen
[00:17:39.920]about barriers and how barriers can be removed,
[00:17:44.450]we have the roving mics available again for anyone that
[00:17:49.150]would like to weigh in with
[00:17:52.090]your thoughts
[00:17:53.030]or
[00:17:54.460]a broader
[00:17:55.820]summation of what was talked about at your table.
[00:18:08.200]Ron, you knew how to eventually do this, right?
[00:18:11.060]It's all yours, Ron.
[00:18:13.390]So our group here,
[00:18:15.860]we talked about
[00:18:18.383]some of the barriers to adopting some of these things.
[00:18:22.560]So the first one we put in is,
[00:18:24.660]cost
[00:18:26.040]and economics of risks are things
[00:18:28.530]like changing equipment and the fact that you may be locked
[00:18:32.060]into your current production system.
[00:18:35.090]That's a big barrier for a lot of folks.
[00:18:37.390]And then just the lack of education on
[00:18:41.050]some of the particular best management practices
[00:18:43.410]in a systems approach,
[00:18:45.190]not just a single approach,
[00:18:46.370]but looking across the whole system.
[00:18:48.830]And
[00:18:50.430]then we thought about the societal pressure
[00:18:54.730]from peers to making changes.
[00:18:57.600]That can be pretty difficult sometimes.
[00:18:59.180]And the last thing we talked about in barriers is,
[00:19:02.990]an understanding of what soil health means
[00:19:07.850]and interpretation of that.
[00:19:09.300]And what's the measurement?
[00:19:11.212](speaking faintly)
[00:19:19.190]Red light.
[00:19:20.023]Okay, I got a green light now.
[00:19:21.480]It says, go.
[00:19:22.570]Green says go.
[00:19:23.740]All right, so removing the barriers.
[00:19:25.790]So we thought about doing some local demonstration projects
[00:19:30.570]on say like research facilities
[00:19:33.060]on some of those best management practices.
[00:19:36.230]Have farmers do some on-farm research on those same things,
[00:19:39.130]so they can start doing some small changes on their farms
[00:19:43.320]and see how they work.
[00:19:45.010]We thought it'd be helpful to have some government programs
[00:19:48.160]that would help reduce the risks to farmers,
[00:19:51.210]particularly economic risks,
[00:19:52.860]to trying some of those new practices
[00:19:55.060]and that we should reduce government programs
[00:19:58.080]or encourage reduction of government programs
[00:20:00.430]that incentivize growing commodities
[00:20:03.810]like corn, and just corn and soybeans,
[00:20:06.120]and emphasize more quality a product, more quality
[00:20:09.250]what we have out there,
[00:20:10.083]more research to gain an understanding of soil health
[00:20:13.980]and develop a standard measure of soil health.
[00:20:17.870]So lots of things to help get at those barriers.
[00:20:22.250]I think this is, to me, anyhow,
[00:20:25.030]this is one of the real keys.
[00:20:27.970]And that is why aren't
[00:20:31.450]the practices that we know work more broadly adopted.
[00:20:35.320]And, John Shanahan, is gonna tell us why.
[00:20:39.310]Well, just one more comment to add on here.
[00:20:42.140]I think a lot of what we talked about was very similar,
[00:20:45.010]but the other thing that we had a discussion
[00:20:47.540]was land tenure.
[00:20:49.320]So folks that are farming rented land
[00:20:51.090]versus the land they own.
[00:20:53.390]Oftentimes, what we hear when we talk to farmers is
[00:20:56.260]that they might enroll in some of
[00:20:58.130]these soil health practices on the land they own,
[00:21:00.170]but if it's rented land, they may not have that land
[00:21:04.150]for more than a couple of years.
[00:21:05.100]And so these are longterm practices
[00:21:07.550]that we're talking about.
[00:21:09.330]So I think if we can educate the farm managers
[00:21:12.910]that they started managing
[00:21:16.557]those rented acres, on that way,
[00:21:18.634]that would likely help us.

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Soil Health Summit: Table Discussions

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