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Soil Health
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Soil Health Information on Other Web Sites
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Healthy Soils, Healthy Crops - A video series released by South
Carolina that focus on soil health and some of the conservation practices
that improve soil health, and activities that benefit from improved soil
health. Precision agriculture is also highlighted.
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Soil Health - Unlock the Secrets in the Soil
- Soil Health Theater - Ray, the Soil Guy, Soil Health Lessons in a Minute
- Speaking for the Living Soils - Meet our Soil Health Spokespersons
- Soil Health Fact Sheets
- Healthy, Productive Soils Checklist
- Soil Quality Concepts -
National NRCS
Soil Quality Website
Soil Health Stories from Local Producers
Soil Health Workshops
- February 20, 2013
Philipsburg, Montana
For more information: 406-859-3291
- February 21, 2013
Range Workshop
Baker, Montana
For more information: 406-778-2238 extension 111
- February 28, 2013
Soil Health and Grazing Land Seminar
Circle, Montana
For more information: McCone Conservation
District Soil Health and Grazing Land Seminar or 406-485-2744 extension 114
- March 5, 2013
2013 Winter Workshop Series 3 - Livestock and Land Health through Drought
Resiliency
Ennis, Montana
For more information: 406-842-5741 extension 100 or 102
The Montana NRCS Soil Health Strategy
Healthy, functioning soil as the foundation for all working lands in Montana
A plan to meet current and future challenges in agriculture
While the U.S. agricultural industry has made significant strides in
improving farming practices to decrease soil erosion and improve water quality,
we still face numerous challenges in the 21st century. Herbicide resistant
weeds, large fluctuations of input costs, overuse of inputs and the resulting
environmental degradation, continued erosion, and new diseases and insects all
threaten producers’ livelihoods. The Soil Conservation Service, created during
the Dust Bowl era, concentrated on ways to decrease soil erosion. Today, we
recognize we have to consider more than getting to “T,” tolerable soil loss
levels, for successful conservation. The average annual erosion on Montana
cropland was 11.4 tons per acre in 1987. Twenty years later, in 2007, the
average annual erosion rate was 6.4 tons per acre. This is progress. It is
keeping rivers and air cleaner, but it is treating a symptom rather than the
problem of unhealthy soil.
We must change our minds about soil health and how it functions. Many of our
problems, regardless of land use, are actually symptoms of the main problem,
dysfunctional soil. A healthy functional soil does not erode, keeps pests in
check, supplies plants and animals with what they need when they need it, and
provides for long-term sustainable systems. A soil health approach to
conservation planning can better address the opportunities we have to improve
resource conditions.
A simple definition of soil health is “the capacity of a soil to function.”
Soil is a living factory of macroscopic and microscopic organisms that need food
to eat and places to live. Without these organisms, soil does not function
efficiently. These organisms control soil’s ability to supply water and
nutrients to plants, and they ultimately determine how successful ranching,
forestry, and farming operations will be. A healthy soil contains a multitude of
individual organisms, including bacteria, protozoa, nematodes, fungi, molds, and
yeasts and can be decomposers, pathogens, parasites, predators or grazers.
Beetles, mites, and small animals feed on the tinier creatures to cycle
nutrients.
The challenges are to harvest sunlight through photosynthesis, allow
microorganisms to break down carbon from plant residues, and cycle nutrients so
they are available to growing plants in order to manage farms, ranches, and
forests sustainably for food and fiber in the future. Managing for soil health
and improved soil function is mostly a matter of maintaining a suitable habitat
for the myriad of creatures that comprise the soil food web. That means
disturbing the soil as little as possible, growing as many different species of
plants as practical, keeping living roots in the soil as often as possible,
keeping the soil covered all the time with plants and plant residues, and
managing livestock to benefit the soil. Managing for soil health has
implications regardless of land use; range, crop, pasture, hay and forest lands
can all benefit.
Soil health must become part of the NRCS culture. Because soil is the
foundation of conservation planning, we should consider soil health first. By
focusing on soil health we can provide the best return on our nation’s
conservation investment and on the farmer or rancher’s bottom line.
Goal 1: Get More Conservation on the Ground Resulting in Improved Soil Health
- Increase knowledge and adoption of soil health principles and
practices by farmers, ranchers, forest landowners, and others.
- Create soil health demonstration projects as models for local
producers to follow.
- Establish the Bridger Plant Materials Center as a Center of
Sustainability in cooperation with the Montana-Wyoming PMC Board of
Managers for long-term demonstrations of technologies that improve soil
health.
- Create NRCS soil health website as the leading source of current
online technical information for soil health.
- Provide outreach to agricultural groups, lenders, and others to
convey the message of soil health e. Develop new training materials
covering soil health and agro-ecosystem sustainability.
- Identify research needs.
- Meet with research partners to address NRCS needs related to soil
health.
- Facilitate awareness of research funding opportunities such as
Conservation Innovation Grants and Sustainable Agriculture Research
Education grants.
- Review external decision support tools and aids for potential use by
NRCS, such as the Soil Food Web.
- Provide an inventory of research related to soil health accessible on
the Web.
Goal 2: Increase Organizational Effectiveness and Efficiencies to
Promote Soil Health.
- Form and support a statewide Soil Health Team to conduct outreach and
advise the state conservationist.
- Provide training to NRCS and conservation partner employees to promote and
practice soil health as part of the conservation planning process.
- Establish eight area-level soil health professionals as our core training
team.
- Use National Employee Development Center soil health training as the
framework for training to be delivered, supplemented by webinars and other
training sources.
- Provide a one-hour webinar for all NRCS and partner employees to ensure a
base level of knowledge of soil health concepts.
- Conduct soil health training to provide NRCS employees with the skills to
promote ecosystem-based conservation planning.
- Require training on soil health and agro-ecology principles as part of
conservation planning certification.
- Develop strong partnerships with the Montana Association of Conservation
Districts and Montana Department of Natural Resource Conservation to ensure
statewide efforts cross agency lines.
- Organize and support a partnership outreach team.
- Reach out to agribusiness, agricultural lenders, and other organizations
to educate them on the benefits of soil health concepts
- Ensure that all conservation districts have NRCS support in presenting
soil health technical information at workshops and events.
NRCS in Montana is fully engaged in this Soil Health Strategy. Farmers,
ranchers, forestland owners, and our employees have seen the important
difference healthy, functioning soil can make in supporting our other water,
air, plant, animal, and energy resources. We are committed to making soil health
a priority for the producers of Montana.
Joyce Swartzendruber,
State Conservationist
9/10/12 If you encounter any problems with the files provided on this page, please contact Technical Resources at 406-587-6822.
The Montana Soil Health Strategy is also available in
Adobe Reader
format.
The Montana NRCS Soil Health Strategy (PDF; 21 KB)
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Last Modified:
02/13/2013
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