Eastern Iowa Farmer Spring 2017

managing your soil
A stable microclimate for the biology is
what builds a better soil.
A print hanging on the wall in Hatfield’s
office illustrates the point in a
more whimsical way. A herd of African
elephants is grazing on what looks like
Midwest farm ground. Underneath the
picture is the tagline: Shouldn’t you feed
your elephants?
“Healthy biological soil is equal to
two African elephants per acre – 10,000
pounds of biological material,” Hatfield
said. “Think about that.”
In the simplest sense, soil health boils
down to the soil’s ability to hold moisture
between rainfalls, he said. And that
depends on the amount of biological life
going on below the surface.
Many farming practices – no till, cover
crops, rotational grazing, crop rotation,
etc. – contribute to soil health, which is
important in Iowa, where weather and soil
create what he calls “the perfect storm.”
“The Midwest is schizophrenic,” he
said. “It’s too wet in the spring and too
dry in the summer.”
If the soil is in poor condition in the
spring, the water will run off rather than
infiltrate downward where it can help
to build the root system and organic life
below the surface. And from there the
challenges build.
Containers of soil in the
lab are measured for
size, oxygen content
and strength to study
how aggregate forms.
“A lot of production limitations aren’t
due to water; they’re due to gases,”
Hatfield said. When soil is in a fragile
condition, the gas exchange that is needed
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82 Eastern Iowa Farmer | spring 2017