Caring For the Environment.
Fischer-Clark Dairy Farm practices four principles of soil health and regenerative agriculture. Regenerative Agriculture is a more natural system that mimics nature. We believe that healthy soil = Healthy Crops = Healthy Natural food for people.
Minimum Disturbance
Biological, chemical and physical tillage, enables the surface plant residue and materials (soil armor) to persist. Overgrazing of forages reduces soil armor and below ground biomass creating a biological disturbance. Over stimulating microbial breakdown, tillage burying crop residues and releasing excessive carbon into the atmosphere create a chemical and physical disturbance.
Soil Armor
Keeping in mind the soil food chain, soil armor works to reduce wind and water erosion, limit water evaporation, moderate soil temperatures, decrease the impact of energy from rain, suppress weed growth and provide a habitat for surface dwellers.
Plant Diversity
Since the beginning of annual crop systems, prairie plant diversity supported and permitted soils to develop. Using sunlight and water to appropriate carbon and other nutrients, plant diversity inhibits leakages into ground and surface waters. It is helpful to understand the crop types when planning cropping structures that progress soil health. The four crop types are; warm-season grasses, warm-season broadleaves, cool-season grasses and cool-season broadleaves.
Continual Live Plant Root
Continual Live Plant Root is imperative for the development of soil aggregate which increases soil pores for air exchange and better-quality water. Whether from the cover crop, commodity crop, or forage crop, it supplies carbon exudates to feed the soil food web, which is replaced with nutrients for plant growth.