Advancing Markets for Pacific Northwest Potatoes, Industrial Hemp, and Commodities from American Indian Reservations
Managing Soil Health for Farmer-First Outcomes
Establish Soil Health Targets
- Develop Soil Health management classes
- Set numerical target for management classes
- Adopt soil health practices or management system
- Employ COMET-Planner and COMET Farmer to estimate changes in soil health
Resulting Impacts of Soil Health Management
- Reduce operation costs
- Build water holding capacity
- Suppress pathogens
- Reduce nutrient and leaching
- Contribute other co-environmental benefits
Climate-Smart Practices to be Used from USDA-NRCS Standards:
- Farmers/managers decide what works for their specific conditions
- Implement management systems that store soil carbon in the rotation phase
- Focus on multiple-year rotation effects
- Add-in practices to enhance effects in potato production year
- Identify additional natural resources enhancement practices
Multi-year Rotation Crop Strategies
- Use no-tillage establishment
- Cover crop and mixes added to potato and rotation crop years
- Multiple-year perennials established once per rotation cycle – alfalfa
- Rotation crops inserted after potato harvest and before next crop
- Rotation crops with added biological attributes – Brassicas
- Generate additional revenue through harvested forage, grain, or fiber products – sudangrass or hemp
- Increased soil organic C
- Enhanced nutrient availability
- Building water holding capacity
- Suppress pathogens
- Reduce supplemental fertilizer need
- Scavenge and cycle nutrients
- Reduce nutrient leaching
- Other co-environmental benefits
This work is supported by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities Grant No. NR233A750004G026