How we are assisting the microbiome

My family from the beginning has always believed if you treat the land and animals right, they will in turn treat you right. This seemingly simple statement has more depth and calling then one might ever imagine. The love and dedication behind that statement is what an honest to God steward of the land does for his lifetime. 

I can stand here before you and tell what we do to better the land.. how we about lost our farm in the 80's because we were never  compensated for spending the extra to do things the right way.. yet that fire still burned in us. Dad and I built many hopes and dreams around our vision of eco-agriculture which runs so much deeper than just farming organically by USDA definition. 

The best advice I have for folks wanting to learn about a producer and why he does what he does is ask him. Get in touch with your local producers. The relationship and understanding you develop will be far more informative and reassuring than any certification can provide. 

From the soil up, it's all about balancing the ration. Why is that so important? It leads to controlling the pH of the system. Both good and bad organisms have pH ranges they prefer which give them an advantage over other organisms. The same is true for chemical reactions and mineral availability. As all these organisms intertwine creating products for each other to build from the number of interactions is limitless. I balance rations based on the carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen levels. Those elements make up roughly 93% of all living organisms. The ratios of those elements to one another create the environment for the microbiome. Being able to control pH and metabolic oxygen levels is crucial for the health of the microbiome, animals and soil.

One of our projects is re-establishing some warm season prairie grasses such as big bluestem and Indian grass. Our pasture has not been tilled for over 75 years and I am hopeful some of the native prairie grasses are still in the seed bank just waiting for the right conditions to grow again. Native warm season grasses are deep rooted with roots going down over 10 feet which is why they are suited for our hot, dry Iowa summers.  

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