Joel Williams - "What is Biological Farming?" - Biological Farming Conference 2018

thank you very much absolute pleasure to be here today and thank you to Sean and all of the team from from Knotts for you know all the behind the work scenes that goes into a busy couple of days like like we're going to have the next few days I must be honest I'm also really looking forward to I think it's going to be really for some really fruitful discussions so pleasure to be here and to open the conference and to see you all here and I look forward to chatting to you all and some of the breaks I always prepare far too many slides and now I've been gonna get my five-minute warning so I really must dive straight into it because there's quite a lot of ground that I really want to cover and so okay what is biological farming and I have to say that I'm answering this question I'm going to discuss this topic from my perspective I've kind of really just put my opinion in from you know the work that I've done the reading the research that I do all of my own experiences I've kind of put together some kind of points and some strategies and I've I've kind of put together a list of ten things kind of 10 10 key ideas that we can apply that we can utilize to you know working towards healthy soils come from a biological perspective so straight into it it starts for me like this here we have we certainly sit right now in a paradigm transition I think we're in the middle of this transition from you know an old way of looking at soils into a a newer way of looking at soils or perhaps a bit more of a a more complete way of looking at soils and it starts with the old paradigm you know here we where was this idea that well plants they release these organic acids these hydrogen ions and acids that directly solubilize minerals from the soil they strip those minerals from the soil and make that release those from the soil and and you know make those available back to the plant and we knew we had this you know my little red friend over here well we knew there was some life there but we didn't really fully understand quite how to manage or to measure that or because it's very big very vast and very diverse it's a very complex ecosystem it's not so easy to study we didn't have the tools so we kind of knew it was there but we had this very chemical kind of focused a view of how plants obtain nutrients from the soil and in reality there's also this other side of the equation well they also plants release sugars carbohydrates all sorts of other root exudates that don't necessarily directly soluble as nutrients from the soil but certainly feed the microorganisms around that root system and indirectly they also help to cycle those nutrients they release their own acids and things and they do of course help to release those minerals from the soil for plant uptake and driving that nutrient cycling so if I can just return back to this one for a minute but there was also a slight little floor with even thinking you're so simplistic so kind of mechanistic in this view of organic acids solubilizing minerals which is that well of course the root systems are absolutely covered in billions and billions of microorganisms of bacteria fungi protozoa and nematodes etc and so even these organic acids that do come out well there's also all these organisms there who gobble up those and feed on those and intercept those I mean root exudates how long do they even live in the soil there exude admire the plant but they're very rapidly consumed by organisms they only migrate one millimeter two millimeters away from the root before they're intercepted and consumed by the life in the soil so really a much more complete way of looking at so as perhaps would be something more along the lines of this and so this is the paradigm transition now we are beginning this process to properly look at soils in their holistic way in their full and complete way to say ok there are chemical processes in the soil there are biological processes in the soil and they exist within a physical environment within the structure within the aggregates all for the soil itself and so we approach this we are now approaching this more complete and a whole way to to view soils now and that's so health it's a balance between all three of those things but even then this idea of biological farming I mean biological farming is suggesting biology and that suggests well plants we know their biology microbes their biology and photosynthesis it's a biological process so actually I think everyone is a biological farmer we're all biological farmers photosynthesis is a biological process and what a simple and beautiful and elegant equation that we can actually boil down into an emoji for you all it's it's just so simple okay there's devil in the detail as always but it's it's energy it's sunlight it's carbon dioxide it's air from the air is and water there okay and then we have minerals you know and this is our piece of the puzzle managing the minerals the minerals which act as catalysts for photosynthesis to drive photosynthesis to drive plant production okay I mean it's actually and from a practical from the field level point of view you know this is the space that we met you know trying to monitor and manage the mineral catalyst to this process do you guys like the emoji Oh the I can't I chose four minerals here I figure you guys have found that so you can handle the idea of manure manure can represent minerals in this nice little equation although that said there is a fierce debate online as to whether that is in fact a poo emoji or an ice-cream emoji I'm serious there's a genuine debate online about this okay so that's it we're all biological farmers photosynthesis is biological again and we just need to think and look about it in a more comprehensive way and then we have this kind of again this emerging middle ground that seems to be happening in agriculture all over the world you know we've had the the old divide the US and then the organic and the conventional side and that's been a real dominant kind of paradigm and also in agriculture recently and there's all sorts of interesting things now happening in the middle there's all sorts of change now conventional farmers they're moving towards the middle again what is the mainstream you know I'm seeing all sorts of production systems using all sorts of interesting stuff and techniques now it's a very exciting I think there's some really fruitful things happening in the middle and all these different types of farming is now production systems okay organic biodynamic permaculture Agri ecology is definitely one that seems to be rising up the agenda a Carbon Farming this was a kind of a hot thing Australia's idea of sequestering carbon the soils and that's kind of been superseded by regenerative agriculture now of course is the big buzzword and that has a strong focus of sequestering carbon in the soils ok biological soil health principles that's a that's a really big one over in North America certainly sustainable AG conservation AG sustainable intensification but that wasn't good enough then we had to have ecological intensification and restore the balance there with ecology climate smart agriculture conventional I mean the list goes on and on and in a way I think that's kind of a good thing it suggests that you know we're not getting pigeonhole into how things were always done we're beginning to explore new ideas find new strategies and techniques and I think that's a really a good sign a good thing that's happening in the yet in the world of agriculture at the moment but of course we can all agree often polarized views are sometimes in the lead to dead end to lock in you know we it's sometimes hard to make fruitful progress when we lock ourselves into sometimes very polarized views and I think for me I really like this image it kind of represents perhaps a better way to be thinking about agriculture horticulture farming and moving forward it's the same well ok there are these three kind of spheres you know what we might call the industrial you know method of agriculture that production focus economies of scale efficiencies and of course that's important we have to produce you know we need to feed ourselves we need to earn some income we need a production element to to what we do of course and then ok perhaps we might say the agrarian may be organic kind of set more over here there's a stronger sense of stewardship or community and these kinds of things and you know and again I Here I am saying that well conventional moving into the middle we can certainly see that organic is beginning to move in that way as well we do have these very industrial style organic farms which are simple simply you know substituting inputs you know it's they're taking one input dependent model and just substituting with organically approved inputs it's still very an industrial style of farming and we're seeing these bigger bigger kind of organic style farms also popping up now so it moves that way too it's not it's not just the other way but the point is again that's just not useful framing for me I just think more important question is how do I get the best how do I make the most out of my production system whatever it is and I think a really good way to frame that point is then to bring in ideas of ecology bringing in you know the role of biodiversity ecosystem services the role of wildlife beneficial insects etc and the point is no matter what production system we use the more we can bring in ecological principles ideas of ecology be that if we're over here we're moving up here or be that if we're over here if we can move up towards ecology it's a win-win it doesn't really matter what our production system is this is a good framing how do we get the most how do we integrate more ecology into the agricultural production system more agro ecology so that's my kind of broad framing my top 10 practices then this is just according to me in my opinion you won't find this necessarily in any you know the Bible of biological farming it's just my own thoughts and experiences on this so we're gonna whiz through these ten present ideas and I'm gonna just share you know a concept of slide a bit of science on each of these and just some examples and that kind of thing so designing with will go through each one in detail designing with diversity feeding saw biology managing our soul Carbon minimizing soil disturbances remineralizing soils but reducing some of our inputs at the same time integrating our nutrient management and news of foliar management and all these really sit together this five six seven eight they really sit together as strategies to help reduce inputs and the use of our inputs they're bringing a lot of stock back into the system and ok lastly we need to be thinking the right way and I'm going to talk about some systems thinking for human element to to farming so ok a few examples let's go straight into principle one and I put this first and foremost for a reason I really think it belongs at the top of the list designing with diversity redesigning our production systems and integrating more diversity more ecology we could also say in every possible way and there are many different strategies to use here it could be as simple as some intercropping we can see this okay cover crops have really taken off and you know we can see intercropping is just the next wave that will come after that and it's this shift from you know what away from monocultures it shift from one even a small step from one to two you know from a monoculture into a an inter crop that's an important first step towards more diversity and I think there's a lot of really interesting things that I've seen in the world of intercropping all around the world at the moment which are very exciting lowered input costs you know lower disease and insect pressures just simply by moving from one to two you know from mono through the beginnings of a poly culture I think there's lots of really exciting stuff happening there but okay it could be covers these short bursts of intense diversity sang with green manures more diversity in the pasture so moving to her belays and more herbs and legumes and things in those pastures I mean could even be able forestry you know particularly more in the tropics we're seeing that that a bit more active so of a pasture of any animals into that too and perhaps our field margins headlands and things you know being being used for wildlife for shelterbelts beetle banks these kinds of things lots of really great ways to bring diversity into the picture and you know in a way a picture says a thousand words I mean I almost don't need to explain it's just it's very it's quite clear we can just distinctly see the benefits here we have you know diversity over here different roots different depths different species or look accumulating different minerals from those different depths different crop stages different flowering times encouraging different wildlife I mean we can see it's an eco has bringing these ecosystem services with more diversity and you know this idea that we went down this path of monoculture that while it was the most efficient we want to minimize that competition we want to improve our efficiencies we want uniformat this idea I mean I look at this half and I see more competition here than I do here I mean look at the volume of soil that these roots are exploring it's the same volume of soil they're all exploring the same volume of sort competing for that volume of soil Wow they're all the same crop stage they have different nutrient requirements through different crop stages so now all of these root systems are also competing for the exact same nutrients at the exact same time well the lesson sounds like more competition to me of course well then their flowering all at the same time and from an ecology or bio diversity point of view well that's great when they're on and they are flowering this we will often see many insects come in of course what about now when they're not quite flowering there's no food for the pollinators and whatnot so I think of how we think about these things I kind of see more competition there I have to say and I think the point about more diversity is a really nice example it's not too clear on the slide but this is looking at three different plants and immersing them into a growing gel which has a pH sensitive compound in there so they were immersed into this growing gel just for six hours and we can see that in that six hours they started to change the rise of spheres around those root systems to change the pH here and so over here we have Farber beans just your kind of standard beans and you can see that their root exudates are very acidic they're driving pushing the pH around that Rises fear down and this is why I'm sure a lot of our legumes grow well in good girl Kline soils etc and well this is soybeans in the middle just an example and it's not too clear here but roughly there rhizosphere is you know somewhere around here ish it's a bit mixed there you can kind of see and over here we have maize and you can see the very takes today are driving more towards than neutral so you know different plants are creating the environment around their roots that they require and of course this Rises for your pH has nothing to do with your bulk soil pH and the pH we look at on our soil test this is happening in that one millimeter two millimeters around the root systems but the point is here we have this highly acidic rhizosphere so all of the trace minerals have become highly available under those more acidic conditions and over here we have more neutral so okay molybdenum is becoming highly available calcium becoming much more available and so of course the plant is doing that to steer it for its own benefit but if we were to bring some fava beans and some beans and some maize together or a legume and a cereal together now their root systems are overlapping and growing into each others and now the maize over here can get all these trace minerals that are highly available here and now the legume can get some Mali and some calcium that's much more available over here so that we then building more resilience through this more diversity they really help to support each other there's a real synergy to be had there with more diversity and okay on a practical level it could be cover crops you know bests of intense diversity for that point in the rotation be that after a crop yeah that's excellent it could be an intercropping style or a relay cropping style here we have some clover under sown a nice cereal here you can as we go through and harvest that you know there we have the green cover already ready on the soil those leaf surfaces capturing sunlight photosynthesizing and pumping those sugars and things down into the soil you know that's a nice example or even in our pastures going to more diversity here we have 12 species on this half here we have 18 species more diverse more competition over here I shouldn't it be as more more species but well actually we can see there's a real synergy that's happening there okay some nice herbs and plantains and things good for their livestock health and immunity as well so no I think diversity it has to be at the center of our redesigning of our agricultural systems going forward so that loses center point too well strategy too we should be feeding the soil biology always always have a living root as long as possible as often as possible in that soil because those plants are pumping those root exudates down to feed those organisms and all I really want to say is is that so we're now we are seeing that microbes favorite fruit sauce in the soil is root exudates that's what they love to feed on more than anything else and of course yeah composted manures and green manures they're all important and they all play a role but the root exudates seem to be the preferred food source and I'm going to give a few examples of that in a few slides time so the point is though that plants photosynthesize they capture that sunlight breathe in carbon dioxide and they will send a percentage of that carbon down to the roots and exuded out and the numbers are quite significant so in a more annual plot of annual plants cereal say for example they release around 20 around to 30% of the total carbon that they breathe in they will pump that down to feed those organisms and as we move to perennials grasses for example more perennial plants for the numbers creep up it's 30 up to even 50% of the total carbon that that plant is breathing in it pumps down to feed those organisms and you know those are significant numbers and I think for me that's a sign that we really should be paying more attention to that and understanding those interactions now I'm guilty of it everyone is we use this word to say well yeah and plants release these sugars and carbohydrates foods to feed the organisms that's true but well in fact they also release hundreds of other root exudates which aren't necessarily food sources for the biology but they are regulators controllers they are on/off switches so plants also released these very unique phyto compounds plant compounds that does switches to turn certain microbes on to turn certain microbes off so the plant is recruiting microorganisms through various crop stages through very various stresses different stresses if they're attacked by pathogen or an insect they will release different compounds pointers you know I'm not asking you to study all these words I can't pronounce half of them myself but the point is to say there is a huge diversity of all of these different types of root exudates that we are only just beginning to categorize to classify and understand what their impact is on that soil microbiome and this is this point about you know as our understanding now so biology is increasing as we are filling in the gaps we can now look at soils a bit more holistically a bit more complete and this is the this is a real hot spot of scientific research at the moment is understanding this interaction between plants root exudates and the soil microbiome and the role of these root exudates in driving changes in the microbiome and changes in plant growth etc so it's a very interesting kind of hot spot and this is his point we know that they are recruiting microorganisms they will plants will release different root exudates of particular crop stages or stresses as I mentioned and that encourages and wakes up certain specific species to then grow around that plant to colonize that root system but as that plant moves on different growth stages etc we'll have enough stuff to release some different chemical signatures these signaling molecules these root exudates to wake up different groups of microorganisms in the soil so it is recruiting all of the time and it is photosynthesis that derives in this process of root excitation and that is the favorite and preferred food source for those microorganisms so if you would like to feed your so biology we've got to keep that soil covered with living plants so then thinking about we all understand the benefits of organic matter and that it's important to build soil organic carbon well I'm not going to delve into the whys of that it's a you know I think we've discussed that kind of a topic enough I would just really like to bring a context here which in terms of how we manage soil carbon we can how to think about that we can apply it we can grow it we certainly have to protect it and then do all of that within the context of designing systems to help us sequester carbon so ok what am i applying carbon I mean it does what it says on the tin it's simply taking carbon from one source and putting it into the soil so okay it could be compost it could be manures bio solids anaerobic digesters biochars mulch biostimulants etc all of these things that we can directly apply carbon to soil and that's fine that's good that's a good strategy it's a good overall soil health strategy it's just the growing carbon I think through photosynthesis growing carbon is a much more economical and effective way to build carbon I'm going to give an example of some new science which is really suggesting this so okay if we're growing carbon it's about photosynthesis it's about living roots but of course we can do that while we produce cash crops producing cash crops is growing carbon releasing those root exudates capturing those and sequestering them into the soil but okay could be covers it could be perennials could be agroforestry the role of livestock bringing more nitrogen fixation hey if we're gonna grow carbon we may as well grow nitrogen at the same time let's get some free nitrogen into the picture and then using the biology particularly fungi to capture those root exudates and transform them and stabilize them into soil organic cores but we have to protect carbon there's no point in sequestering and building carbon if we're just going to keep on using practices that volatilize it off that oxidize carbon off back off into the atmosphere so there are strategies like no bare soil you know keeping the soil covered that helps to hold carbon in the soil minimizing our tillage you know when we just when we disturb the soil we break apart those aggregates leading to more loss of carbon so minimizing tillage where possible and that helps to improve structure aggregation but okay we may need some disturbance at some points in time it's about using the right tool at the right time shallow as possible you know trying to minimize our disturbance is a broad good strategy and I will come back and talk about that and that one's a hot topic too but okay and I've really touched on this there's a lot of these things begin to overlap you see so well when we redesign our systems that actually helps us also build more carbon in the soils through better system design so again we know more polyculture more diversity helps from that point of view bringing a lot of stock back into the picture okay trees as I mentioned again I'm going to talk about integrated nutrient management in a few slides but also maybe choosing the right varieties like designing varieties for production systems here we have einkorn and more of an ancient variety of wheat versus a modern wheat grown sown on the same day you same growing conditions very very different routing so we can design our production systems for these expression of these traits and things that we want and of course we've been without plant breeding for the last 50 odd years we've been very focused on above-ground selecting for above-ground traits well we can also be selecting for a root that's bigger root systems more resilience more drought proofing more mineral accumulators all of these things can help us use less inputs and managed more sustainably and I wanted to share a new piece of science here which i think is one of the really important pieces that's only just come out a few months ago that is the beginnings of this emerging idea of this important role of root exudates and how important they specifically are in yes talking to microbes and feeding microbes but also building soil carbon as I said there's a lot of hot kind of research happening in this space at the moment and this is just one piece of evidence that really suggests that those root exudates are the most important thing for building soil carbon it's not to say that our compost sand litters are not play a role but that root exudates specifically are particularly important and I'll just read this out recent theory suggests that living root inputs that means root exudates they use the word living root inputs it exerts a disproportionate influence on soil organic carbon formation but few studies have explicitly tested this by separately tracking root exudates versus litter inputs as they move through the soil food web and through the pool carbon pools and that's that point I was making when those root exudates are exerted sometimes how long do they stay in the soil how long do they last in the soil sometimes only half an hour one hour two hours before they're consumed by the organisms and they only migrate a millimeter two millimeters away they're very hard to study root exudates are quite hard to study for that reason and anyway the way the experiment was designed I'm going to show you this one on the next slide we show that root exudates are 2 to 13 times more efficient than litter than root or chute litter in forming both slow cycling carbon cools and fast slow cycling car pause so they show that root exudates play a dominant role in long-term carbon building but also short-term carbon cycling for for biology and things and this is just it breaks it down very simply it's a very simple experiment but you can see it's very effective in treatment one here they grew the plants during the growing season so of course we have root exudates 30 odd percent of that carbon being exude it out into the rhizosphere during the growing season when pumping pumping pumping that down and then at the end the plants it's during a post death and senescence here they left the residue right there so we had root exudates in the growing season plus residue and litter left right there in treatment to here during the growing season again we have root exudates root exudates being pumped out pumped out pumped out but then at the plant death they removed of their litter the roots and shoots and put them over here into treatment 3 so here we have only root exudates and no litter at all got put into a treatment too and over here we have just litter there was no root exudates there was no nothing up here in the growing season very simply designed experiment and what they showed these 3 bars correspond to the three you just saw here what they showed is that okay litter only when we had that treatment three here just litter well I actually contributed very little to the sole carbon building pools it plays a role it was a small bump there you can see in litter plays an important role in terms of protecting the soil surface from rainfall and sun sun sun when you guys get some sunshine here if the soil ever dries out which it did this year so you know we have those benefits of litter and mulch layer so I'm not taking away from those but this evidence was saying well they didn't really contribute much to carbon pools but where we did have living roots those root exudates in fact they actually were the key player a driver of carbon sequestration now there was a slight anomaly where here in the first one where we had root exudates plus litter we would have thought the treatment a first one would have been the highest we had root exudates plus litter should be the highest then root exudates okay then litter so that didn't quite happen although it's not a hugely significantly different so you could say they're roughly the same but there's a bit of a bump there you can see and it was postulated that well okay maybe the microbes had to use a little bit of carbon to break down that litter layer to use up some root exudates to kind of break down that litter so there was a little bit of a loss there but either way that's not the point the point is that where we have root exudates they were the key driver of building carbon so this is you know some new emerging kind of science helping us to rethink the role of root exudates and those microorganisms and all sorts of saw processes so okay then in terms of next strategy minimizing soil disturbance you know this has to be a strategy that we can all embrace and again doesn't matter in our production system some of you may be no-till in the room some of you may be tillage farmers it really doesn't matter when we use the wording we all should help be working towards minimizing soil disturbance we can all get on board with that some of you can't go no-till some of you might be organic for example etc fine but you can still work towards minimizing sort of status what about that clover under sown with that cereal I showed earlier you know that clover was under sown cereal was harvested and then we moved into that mecca I was on organic farm I should say and you know we moved into that next clover rotation without disturbing the soil and this is where into cropping under sowing real a cropping these kinds of things here's the strategies where we can start to still produce and minimize soil disturbance and the reason we want to minimize the solar servants is very clear it's it's all about protecting soil aggregates and these are the things I just talked about those root X eighths and their role in building carbon well that carbon then gets protected and stored in soil aggregates this aggregate of course is a ball a sphere it is a three-dimensional structure all of the carbon inside that aggregate is protected but once we come through and disturb that soil well we break apart those aggregates and now all of that soil is highly exposed to oxygen where a co2 carbon can be lost as co2 so we've got to maintain aggregates to maintain good in our soil and you know this was a study that looked at a whole range of different factors that influence soil aggregation what is the driver of aggregation how do we create good aggregated good structured soils and they looked at a whole range of different variables and found that the most important factor that influences the aggregation of soil was the presence of mycorrhizal fungi which i'm sure you've all heard of beneficial fungi that form those roots a colonized plant root system forming those beneficial associations and they were the key factor there was a strong correlation the more aggregated your soil was the more mycorrhizal fungi you had okay they were tightly correlated and so they I think which make sense they are the key driver they release all these sticky substances and they're hyphae pools particles together helping to aggregate soil and of course cultivation then breaks these apart as I as we just mentioned and I think this is also the really important point they found that fungicide applications reduced the presence of mycorrhizal fungi okay we might expect that with a plateau fungicide we might expect that some of the fungi to be compromised by their but they also found where the fungicide applications were taking place there was also a reduction in these aggregates which of course makes sense because we've not we've compromised the fungi who's the key driver of those aggregates so when we remove them we remove aggregates so here's a real important point that everything is absolutely connected and how we are managing our foliage the canopy up top on the plant over time can start to lead to not good aggregation poorly aggregated soils and when we use heavy machinery and do do that a few times through the season a few repeat on those fungicides well over time we compact that soil we lose those aggregates it's those aggregates that help to maintain soil structure so and that's a really important point everything is connected who would have thought our father applied chemistry can influence the soils structure it's an interesting point okay next one is remineralization all I'll say here is that okay the point about photosynthesis this is the exact same slide as my emoji slide earlier it's and the exact same thing we need sunlight carbon dioxide water and minerals acting as as part of enzymes or catalysts minerals which catalyze the process of photosynthesis and produce sugar glucose that first product of photosynthesis the point is the plant cannot do it if it does not have adequate supply or balance of the minerals and that's our job as farmers to get this piece of the puzzle right to get this yellow right and then what does the plant do with that sugar that simple little carbon source well again it requires minerals which act as catalysts to synthesize a whole range of more diverse and more complex carbon compounds everything that the plant is made up of that it requires for growth processes it all comes back to it all synthesizes those from that first little sugar molecule but again it requires minerals to catalyze this process to synthesize more complex sugars complex carbohydrates proteins amino acids fats and oils hormones vitamins phytonutrients protective compounds aromatic compounds flavor compounds pigments colors defense chemicals I mean you name it the list just goes on and on root exudates everything that the plant is made up of and then it requires it needs those mineral catalysts and that's our job and it all comes from that simple molecule into complexity and diversity I mean even more staggering to think actually it all comes from thin air actually which is quite a remarkable thought to think there everything that the plan is comes from the air okay and a little bit of minerals from the soil that's our job right here so the point is yeah we may need to remineralize the soils if we don't have adequate supply of these minerals well this process cannot work cannot flow and it is your job as a farmer to be a photosynthesis manager and to drive this process so look at the roll of minerals there and I think no bigger example can I give them if we then link this point into the discussion of nitrogen which of course is an important point nitrogen management it's a really critical nutrient but of course there's all this free nitrogen we're so dependent on nitrogen from the bag well actually there's a vast amount already there free in the air but ok plants can't access it but the bacteria can and we're not talking just legumes here we're talking free living nitrogen fixers we are now categorizing many many bacterial species who live around the root systems of any plant of grasses or shrubs of herbs I mean anything not just legumes free living nitrogen fixers who also have this capacity to deliver nitrogen to the plant however they need minerals to those microbes need minerals to hey we we understand the plants need plant nutrition humans need nutrition animals need nutrition where are we thinking about the requirements of microbes and minerals for microbes well it turns out that they need certain trace minerals in order for them to deliver all this free nitrogen we have huge potential to reduce our dependency on nitrogen from the bag if we can encourage more nitrogen fixation but those bacteria require certain catalysts as certain minerals acting as enzymes or catalysts in that process molybdenum iron nickel molybdenum iron let's start with them they they form they're a metal their mineral that forms this enzyme called nitrogenase and what nitrogenase does is this is the enzyme that grabs on to that nitrogen gas in the air two nitrogen's attached with a three strong bond and this unique enzyme can grab onto that nitrogen gas and pull it apart then we have this other enzyme here called hydrogenation nickel is particularly important for this but you can also get a iron hydrogenases as well but nickel is particularly important for a nitrogen fixation and what does hydrogenase do well it's but it's a part hydrogen hydrogen gas h2 so now we have some free hydrogen and some free nitrogen and now we can bring those two together to deliver ammonia to the plant and this is what the bacteria do but they require Molly iron or nickel how many of us are I bet many of you are watching managing your iron how many of us are managing our Molly and our nickel how many of us also know that nickel is an essential plant nutrient it is essential for plant growth it's part of another enzyme in the plant called urease which helps to break apart urea and utilize urea so if you are a conventional farmer using urea fertilizer you need nickel to utilize that urea think about these things enough and this is the point you may not need to apply these trace minerals maybe you have enough already but they play a really important role maybe we should be looking at them a bit deeper okay then this foreleg you this is true of all major fixes and then we have the leg unit specific ones - cobalt has a role in nodule formation boron calcium they're really important for matching fixation so if we want free stuff we should be thinking about all of these other nitrogen synergists to go with and moving on that links us to well consequently there's lots of free stuff out there to use let's try and start dialing down our dependency on those artificial inputs and with good reason we're incredibly efficient at being inefficient with nutrients from the bag how much actually gets taken up by the plant well nitrogen 40 50 odd percent of applied nitrogen official nitrogen reaches the plant is taken up by the plant the other 50% can be could be leached could be volatilized could be locked up it's very inefficient how many of us would like to use 50 percent less fertilizer as a good there's a first step you know then we can dial down further from there okay what about phosphorus 10 to 20 percent of what is apply it actually gets into the plant okay phosphorus we don't lose so much it more so gets locked up and becomes unavailable okay potassium 40 odd percent these are rough numbers okay it's gonna be different in different soil types and different climates but you know broadly the consensus is the numbers are around this ballpark okay so if that's what we're getting into the plant how much are we losing from the system you know and the point is there's a lot of inefficiencies there's a lot of potential to dial down our inputs and improve our input efficiencies and part of that strategy is also understanding that soils do indeed have a bank of minerals a reserve of minerals present in them that we often don't access and that's this total pool is often insoluble and unavailable locked up pool of nutrients that exists in soil but we are there but we just simply don't utilize them we're not cycling them we're not accessing them and we need particularly biology to help us access those so the point is that there's soils do have a big reserve and it can be ten fold twenty fold higher than what you normally look at on your asur test when we look at the available forms there can be ten fold more there but just not yet available and so there's scope to Riemann we're gonna strike this balance yes we need to remineralize and bring key things that we may not have into the picture but we have lots of opportunities to dial down to improve efficiencies and one of the ways we can do that is through integrated nutrient management my next point and integrated nutrient management is simply about integrating as many different strategies together to manage fertility why be dependent on just one or the other you know let's bring them all together they all have different benefits different strengths different weaknesses and that's what's good about integrated nutrient management so okay it's broadly about often it will be about combining organic based inputs with inorganic based inputs I'm trying to bring together a middle ground of those two strategies but okay it could be other strategies to managing crop residues bio solids composters manures okay increasing nitrogen fixation maybe with more legumes maybe with better management of trace minerals it could be the role of our fertilizers or microbial inoculants there it could also be the role of animals in degree integrating into the system and the point is that in this slide summarizes it nicely what the strategy of integrated nutrient management all about its simply saying well rather than apply nutrients in a highly soluble form on their own well actually we'd be better to combine them with some kind of a carbon source - too complex to wrap up taquile - to bind to that nutrient and when we wrap up and bind that nutrient with a carbon source well like you can see over here we complex that together we stabilize that nutrient it's when that nutrient is applied in a soluble water soluble form on its own well that's where it can of course very quickly leach away it can lock up it can Valletta lies off but if we complex it and bind it to some carbon first well then we stabilize it it's not going to be so leachable now we don't have in a single iron in the soil we have a molecule we have a structure here which can not leach so easily this nutrient will not lock up with other minerals now it's it's it's stabilized so it's it's an important strategy and the idea of integrating our nutrient management strategies together with a carbon base is one of those key tips okay final few now foliar management I put this one in here I know look perhaps a lot of people don't even do folios or don't own a folio read many of you will some of you won't but I put it in here because I think it is a really important piece of the puzzle in which we can help us improve our nutrient use efficiency x' and dial down in those inputs I think it has a role to play in that space and the point is that that is because well plants they are an expression of the soil health you know of the plant of the soils physical chemistry and biology all of those interactions Drive nutrient uptake and the plant takes that up from the soil so in a way the plant is an indicator of soil health its growth is an expression of the source chemistry physics and biology and so it's an important piece of that puzzle but however of course as we just discuss through photosynthesis and through those root exudates that come down and exude out into the soil well the plant also influences the soil processes as well it's not just that the plant is an expression of the soil the plant also changes the soil through those root exudates it's also changing the biology the chemistry of the physics so it is a two-way street it is an interaction and so I think tools to measure plant health should become important we should put them into the focus so it could be tissue tests at tests visual assessments of plant health that can give us a guideline an indicator of soil function we're keeping in mind that those minerals are catalysts for that photosynthetic process and therefore we can use foliar applied nutrients as targeted to highly efficient small doses targeted applications of minerals to for the plant to take up to prime that photosynthetic process and that's what Foley is to be highly efficient there and the plant will take up those minerals from the foliar it Prime's photosynthesis and when we prime photosynthesis we we we help the plant produce more root exudates which then help to drive much more nutrient cycling down in the soil so it's just a primer a little bit of primer on the folder which then helps to drive much more nutrient cycling down in that sort amongst that's all microbiome so really these are interconnected and soil health is equal to plant health plant health is equal to soil health there is no soils with our plants no plants without soils they are one in the same thing why do we disconnect them why do we manage soils and manage plants we should be managing them together and so my point here is that it's not just about chemistry physics and biology it is this three parts yes but how we really should be thinking about soil health is like this is the four part we have to insert plants into that picture of chemistry physics and biology they are influenced by that but they also influence the soil as well so this is a much more useful way to think and frame sort of the concept of soil health it should be a four part Venn diagram I like my Venn diagrams I have to say but are the other reason I think that foliar management is going to be a more important moving forward is this whole emerging understanding of the plants immune system and that we can apply certain triggers and substances or microbes and compounds that can turn on the plants immune system to help it fight off disease to help it fight off pathogens and insects etc and this is again one of these new really emerging kind of hot spaces of a lot of scientific endeavor at the moment I understanding these immune responses when plants get attacked by a pathogen or an insect they send all these they recruit microbes microbial recruitment they send all these stress on/off switches those root exudates to wake up certain microbes to help them fight off that insect or fight off that disease there's this whole plant microbe communication happening through those root exudates and we now are beginning to understand that that has important impacts on plant immunity on plant stress on health plant health plant stress and so I think some of these things like buy fertilizers or buy stimulants botanicals you know it's about tapping into the microbiome really of the soil and the microbiome all over the plant the phyto biome and understanding these interactions and that's going to be more important moving forward helping us to again you use better integrated pest management strategies dialing down our dependency on pesticides using other novel techniques such as this and again at the end of the day though it also comes back to good mineral management this is the same process it's photosynthesis again the minerals acting as catalysts to synthesize immune defense chemicals anti feedings anti herbivory bitter compounds self strengtheners deterrent compounds volatile compounds all of these things that help to deter or suppress our insect pests but again it's about good mineral management and optimizing this so that you can catalyze that process and it's the same for disease resistance as well it all comes from this it all comes from this it's your piece of the puzzle here optimizing nutrient balance and nutrient availability for all of the macros and all of the macros in order to drive these immune processes anti microbials antibiotics physical compound physical barriers self strengthen as these kinds of things these immune compounds that we can fire up with the plant so again we couple these two things together or these three things together we couple good mineral management some of these inducing priming agents and the microbiome good cell health around that root system we bring these three pieces of the puzzle together we've got real potential for optimizing plant health minimizing our dependency on pesticides and some of those inputs which are of course somewhat controversial these days okay so then we're moving to I've got just two pictures to wrap this up I won't say too much on livestock integration I just think it makes a lot of sense it's about increasing the budget bringing more ecology in increasing the biodiversity so you know of course animals bring with them a different ecology there are different species here more diverse those manures the insects that live in the manure cowpats I mean they're bringing a new ecosystem a new piece of ecology into the arable into the horticultural doesn't matter both you know into the production system so I think they have good good in that regard and more diversity but of course this is real soil improvement here we have perennials those grasses they're pumping 50 percent of that carbon they breathe in down to the soil not 20 not 30 percent but more like 50 percent pumping that carbon down improving the soil health so I think you know the role of short permanent grasslands but certainly some of our rotational lays and these her ballets these things that are becoming popular rightly so more diversity in rotation also helping us productor with our production cycles through the rest of that rotation building up fertility with animals and then using it within the rest of the rotation it makes good sense in my opinion so I think if we can bring livestock back or if you're just a livestock farmer maybe need to be bringing some vegetables or some cereals back into your rotation for example and then my last point is this idea of systems thinking and I have a dual meaning to this word systems thinking we could also say as much akin to holistic management it's about looking at the bigger picture the for the system it's about widening the view on sort health and soul and plant health and saying well you know it's not so simplistic boil it down and simplify let's embrace that complexity we need to look at the entirety of the system and when we do that we can make better decisions it is about redesigning the system and it's about identifying leverage points focal points points where you can get focus your time your money your energy you know focus your practices to get the biggest bang from your buck you know we're looking for multiple outcomes multiple benefits points of action where you invest your time and effort where you get multiple benefits and that's what systems thinking is all about it's about looking at the full picture and identifying where the critical points are for you to focus your time effort money energy etc but I have a double meaning to this so that's that's holistic management let's let's try and measure the whole manage the whole thing but I have a double meaning to this one and that's the hand very this is also the human touch there's also the coldest social cultural economic and political interactions that feed into all the productive agriculture all of those might four more points on that list I think we need to bring more social cultural interactions it's not just about soils and plants and animals it's about being here it's about being here today one of the most important things is nothing you're not the compaction out there in the fields it's the compaction up here this is the bigger one compaction we have to deal with and the way in which we do that is to coming along to events like today it's so important to have a community to have that social cultural link to know that there's others out there doing same as you tiling some of these things using some practices learning from others knowledge exchange knowledge transfer etc the social cultural element is also so important and we should do that within the context of systems thinking and designing farming systems for better outcomes has to be a piece of biological farming in my opinion as well and any farming of course so really it comes down to this you know it's it is groaning it's also biology it's also eco okay and there's my ten strategies that's designed with diversity and put that systemically central to our production systems feed that saw biology managed so carbon particularly with living roots and root exudates minimize our soil disturbance occur at disturbances it's not just cultivation I mean you know over grazing is a disturbance compaction machinery compaction is a disturbance too much fertilizer is a disturbance there's lots of soil disturbances but okay I talked about physical disturbance there remineralize where necessary but do that at the same time as dialing down some of those other inputs we can do that with integrated nutrient management and foliar efficiencies bringing livestock back in spend some of our systems thinking so I'll leave you with these two images this is my take-home message for today yes we want to design yes we need this bigger picture a social cultural holistic kind of point a landscape point of view a human dimension all of that has to come in and we do that at the same time as bringing more ecology into our production systems no matter what production systems we use that's not that's not bash heads and have a fight over that let's just say that how do we get the best out of my production system no matter what and the answer to that is absolutely integrating more ecology into your system bu organic conventional regenerative this that or the other etc etc okay so that's my take home message is more ecology more systems thinking more does intentional design okay thank you very much you can find me on Twitter or website there if you'd like some more information okay thank you very much Joe [Applause] you [Applause]

Channel: National Organic Training Skillnet

Views: 5,130

Rating: 4.8904109 out of 5

Keywords: biological farming, soil health, biological farming conference 2018, Joel Williams, nots, National Organic Training Skillnet, farming conference tullamore, farming conference ireland

Id: 9KVBNlQlDUU

Length: 54min 44sec (3284 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 12 2019