NRCS demonstraton at Achievement Days

 


By: Ryan Alley,

NRCS Soil Conservationist

Rain is one of the most important factors when trying to raise a crop. Its effectiveness is dependent upon the health of your soil. Healthy soils require biology such as bacteria, fungi, microorganisms, and living roots to create a soil profile riddled with pore spaces. Pore spaces allow water to infiltrate through the soil profile for plant uptake. Without these pore spaces the soil seals up and once the soil is sealed, it does not matter how much rain you get, it will not infiltrate into the soil profile. Salinity, which is a soil management issue, creates such a scenario.

When looking around the county, one may notice bare spots in fields, but may not understand what the cause is. These spots are usually around wet areas including potholes, streams, and road ditches. These areas are a condition of unhealthy soil functions that lead to high levels of salinity within the soil. If left alone, these spots can progressively become larger and cause real issues with our soils and crops. These areas are devoid of life and do not allow the soil to function and infiltrate water to grow crops. Alternative management practices must be considered on these areas to minimize their impact on our fields.

Alternative management practices include, no-till to reduce evaporation rates, reduce fertilizer rates, and increasing crop diversity by adding new crops such as barley, salt-tolerant alfalfa, or cover crops. For those areas where only kochia grow, there is only one option and that is perennial salt tolerant grasses. The key is keeping living roots on these areas to help infiltrate water through the soil profile taking the salts with it. Reclamation of these sites is not an overnight process, it takes years depending on how saline the area is.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service office in Ipswich invites you to the Edmunds County Achievement Days on Friday, August 3 at 5 p.m. next to the 4-H building. We will be conducting the slake test, which is a way to visualize how different soil management practices can impact our soil and water interactions. We will also be conducting EC tests (salinity tests), which gives us a reading of how much salt is present in the soil and discuss the impacts they have on our crops and soil. We hope you can make it and enjoy our presentations.

 

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