Organic Farmer Aug/Sept 2019

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Furrow irrigation in organic tomatoes at Park Farming Organics, Meridian, California. Photo courtesy of Scott Park. Continued from Page 39 of change we are currently witnessing is much greater than anything nature has previously experienced. Shifts in climate that would normally occur over geological time scales are happening within a human lifetime; a clear indication we do not have the luxury of continuing business as usual. While many human activities produce the greenhouse gases largely responsible for climate change (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane), mainstream agricultural practices are a major contributor of the latter two, which happen to be the most potent greenhouse gases. Interestingly, the rate of nitrous oxide and methane emissions from agriculture is influenced in part by soil moisture levels. For example, spikes of nitrous oxide emissions tend to occur when soil moisture levels are high. Therefore, we can expect emissions of these greenhouse gases to 1) Keep soil covered 2) Diversify crops 3) Maintain living roots 4) Minimize disturbance fluctuate alongside changing precipitation patterns. Given these changes, it is essential we support the adoption of agricultural management practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase resilience to the effects of climate change we are already experiencing. Healthy Soils Enter the Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF), a national non-profit committed to improving organic production systems and supporting the success of organic growers. Through national surveys of organic producers and analyses of the latest agricultural research, OFRF identified soil health as a key management strategy that can help farmers and ranchers mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. A large body of research clearly indicates healthy soils provide a number of valuable services that can help farmers adapt to changes in water availability. For example, healthy soils have greater water holding capacity compared to degraded soils, which means healthy soils are better at retaining water when it is scarce and absorbing excess moisture when it is abundant. The Natural Resources Conservation Service has identified four key soil health principles that support these services: 1) keep soil covered, 2) diversify crops, 3) maintain living roots, and 4) minimize disturbance. However, implementing practices that achieve these principles—such as conservation tillage to reduce soil disturbance—can be at odds with other production goals, such as weed management. Moreover, there are a number of different ways growers can implement each of these principles. For example, maintaining crop diversity can be achieved by planting polycultures, implementing diversified crop rotations, and/or growing cover crops. Growers need to understand the benefits and challenges associated with each of these strategies, and under what conditions these practices are most likely to succeed. To overcome these implementation challenges, OFRF funds innovative research on organic soil health management so organic producers have the knowledge they need to confidently select strategies that make sense for them. Research by OFRF Recently, OFRF funded a project exploring the potential for soil health practices to improve a farm’s resilience to water shortages, research that could help growers adapt to shifts in water availability associated with climate change. The project was led by Dr. Amélie Gaudin at the University of California, Davis in collaboration with Scott Park, an organic grower in the Sacramento Valley. A primary goal of the project was to empirically test how healthy soil practices, such as diverse crop rotations, cover cropping, and conservation tillage, affected water use efficiency in tomato crops. Given the water restrictions many California farmers experienced during the recent multi-year drought, it is critical to develop new irrigation strategies that reduce water inputs while maintaining product quality. Specifically, the project tested a standard irrigation schedule (irrigation terminated 30 days before harvest) against a deficit irrigation Continued on Page 42 40 Organic Farmer August/September 2019
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