Soil Health Institute

Among the five critical questions included in this Farm Progress article: "Can I enhance soil health and biodiversity on my farm?" https://lnkd.in/ecPhM6me

Paid summer internship opportunity: Gain professional and scientific experience while contributing to the future of regenerative agriculture! Each intern will spend 9 weeks working with an SHI scientist virtually and in-person on a soil regeneration research project, with 1-2 weeks of on-farm soil sampling. All travel costs for soil sampling and two trips to our North Carolina headquarters are covered. Open to Soil Science, Agronomy, Plant Science, Agricultural Science, Environmental Science, Biology, Botany, and associated majors. Apply by Feb. 24!

Help shape the future of regenerative agriculture! We’re hiring a Field Research Associate to work across 12 states on a project comparing paired fields with and without soil health practices. In this role, you will: ➡️ Maintain positive relationships with forward-thinking farmers and ranchers testing innovative practices in row crop and grazing systems  ➡️ Provide technical assistance to project participants  ➡️ Collect management data  ➡️ Work with GIS and remote sensing tools Review of applications begins Feb. 14! 

We are excited to be collecting responses. If you haven’t already, please consider taking this survey on soil health-hydrology!

Are you a cotton farmer located in North Carolina? The U.S. Regenerative Cotton Fund has built a network of Farmer Mentors in various states that are available for farmers and advisors to consult with – for free! Meet Donny Lassiter, a third-generation farmer passionate about producing cotton on his family’s farm. Lassiter also grows peanuts, corn, non-GMO soybeans, wheat, barley, and pumpkins, and uses cover crops such as wheat, rye, and oats in the fall and winter to conserve soil nutrients, suppress weeds, and control erosion. He's also transitioned to no-till farming to reduce fuel use and improve efficiency. Our Farmer Mentors are ready to share their tips, tricks, and lessons learned with you. To connect with those in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, or Texas, visit our Contacts page: https://lnkd.in/eR8NmgxD

We’re marking our 10th anniversary by gathering thought leaders in the soil health movement September 30-October 2 in St. Louis! Save the date to join us for plenary sessions, workshops, farm tours, and networking with innovators across regenerative agriculture. For updates, watch this space or join our mailing list: https://lnkd.in/gC6QakhU

When we interviewed 100 farmers across 9 Midwest states, 97% said practices that improve soil health provided resilience to extreme weather and 85% increased their profitability. The tool described below allows measuring an essential indicator of soil health (carbon) in the field, without requiring laboratory analysis! We are grateful for the federal grant that allowed this accomplishment, which benefits farmers, ranchers, and all of us who consume what they produce.

Talk is cheap! Publishing in the world’s top soil science journal is something else. 😎 We’re immensely proud to announce our recent publication in Geoderma alongside our long-time collaborators and advisors at the Soil Health Institute: https://lnkd.in/eAsBt_-B Of course, we’re all standing on the shoulders of giants - spectroscopy for SOC is by now a multi-decadal discipline. We didn’t make this stuff up! Nonetheless, we believe we’re the only commercially-deployed in situ spectroscopy solution for SOC stock quantification in the world. Soil C MRV has been a hot hot topic in recent years, and rightly so! But that means there’s a lot of nonsense out there. With appreciation towards earlier-stage technologies trying to do the same thing as Yard Stick, we think we’re doing this “the right way” with a peer-reviewed publication in a top-shelf journal. A solution which can’t show its work or stand up to expert peer-review is no solution indeed. Yard Stick was founded because “what gets measured gets managed.” We’ve mismanaged SOC stocks for decades, with predictable, and terrible, results. Sadly, this issues will only continue unless we realign incentives. The single best indicator of soil health is soil organic carbon, so whether you care about food security (= national security!), emissions reductions, carbon removal, resilient supply chains, thriving rural economies, ecological conservation and restoration, or the intrinsic beauty and pleasure of natural systems… soil carbon is critical-path. If you’re working in agricultural systems, appreciate our commitment to scientific rigor, and would like to learn more about the low-cost approach to soil C MRV in our Geoderma article can happen on YOUR program’s land, please share your information at the link in comments - we’d love to chat!

A new handheld tool shows promise for measuring soil carbon stocks at scale, a crucial step in quantifying regenerative agriculture’s capacity for carbon sequestration. Current methods for measuring carbon stored in soil involve collecting samples and shipping them to a lab for analysis. A new study from the Soil Health Institute and Yard Stick PBC shows a handheld probe can accurately measure soil carbon stocks up to 45 cm (nearly 18 inches) deep right in the field, saving time and money. The probe uses visible and near-infrared spectroscopy to reveal soil’s molecular composition based on how different components in the soil reflect the wavelengths emitted by the probe. In the ARPA-E funded study, the researchers took handheld probe measurements and corresponding soil core samples from six farms across Illinois. By comparing the probe’s readings to lab analysis of the soil cores, they confirmed that the probe performed well for estimating soil organic carbon stocks. “This probe presents an inexpensive yet accurate avenue for measurement-based carbon markets,” says Dr. Ayush Joshi Gyawali, a Research Soil Scientist at the Soil Health Institute and the study’s lead author. Co-authors of the study in the journal Geoderma include Marissa Wiseman, Sarah Coffman, and Kevin Meissner of Yard Stick PBC; SHI Research Soil Scientist and Program Director Dr. Jason Ackerson; and SHI Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Cristine Morgan. Read the paper: https://lnkd.in/ej4pNCAw

Every year, the American Geophysical Union hosts the largest gathering of earth and space scientists, convening more than 30,000+ attendees from 90+ countries. At #AGU24 in December, SHI Research Soil Scientists Dr. Dan Liptzin and Dr. Nate Looker presented their innovative work: ➡️ Dr. Liptzin's poster “Benchmarking as a Flexible Framework for Quantifying Soil Health Based on Agricultural Management” summarized the benchmarking process that uses differences in management to evaluate soil health indicators. ➡️ Dr. Looker presented on "On-Farm Progress towards Potential Soil Health in Eleven Regions of the Southern U.S." His results found that soils under soil health management systems had 12% more soil organic carbon, 11% greater aggregate stability, and 18% greater carbon mineralization potential, on average, compared to traditional systems.