Ecosystem Values in Regenerative Agriculture

Soil dynamics and humus content.

Soil and water plays major key role in crop production and has been the traditional form of crop production since the dawn of humankind. Despite the new capital intensive ventures attempting the soilless media, the 99.95 % of the world still rely on the soil for the human nutrition. Unfortunately, decades of ensuring the soil is bare from any other crops except the monocrops, employing diverse methods of weed control, the soil has continued to decline in value of its ability to produce. The fact that all the soil functions dictated by nature are being replaced by toxic chemicals increases the chances of failure if there is no massive amounts of synthetic fertilizers added.

The decline in organic matter, exposure to excessive heat from the sun, water erosion carrying the top most layer rich in humus and organic matter has been the declining with continued intensive agricultural practices. In comparison with forest soil (often in demand if available), the forest soil is rich in humus and organic matter which serves many functions. Among the most important function being provision of energy for micro-organisms that play important roles in the agricultural functions.

Why does it matter?

Ecological processes responsible for the soil microbial balance are optimal at certain levels of carbon content in the soil and species of the microorganism diversity. Therefore, for the correct support of the optimal microorganism population, there is a need to have at least 5% of humus content which has been found to have the ability to store up to 190,000 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare per year.

Studies have found that different interactions between soil microbes exist which comprise competition, mutualism, cooperation, and exploitation. Having a good mix of microbes plays a role in having healthy soils which reduce the extent of single species of microorganism that could greatly increase disease incidences and increase production costs. The part of the cooperation is well spelled out in the biological nitrogen fixation, whereby mycorrhizal fungi serve as the habitat for the nitrogen-fixing bacteria species. Other issues relate to the use of the natural systems such as the legumes having a higher affinity for rhizobium species fixing nitrogen while there are also some other free-living species.

Apparently, it’s been found that soil denitrification is higher in soils with lower humus (mulch) content and lower in sols with adequate humus (mulch) content. Therefore having more plant-based organic matter boost crop production and subsequently reduces the carbon emissions from the agricultural soils.

The presence of a cover crop increases the soil's ability to increase humus content while nitrogen-fixing plants increase available soil nitrogen in addition to serving as the habitat for the nitrogen-fixing species. The adoption of legume cover crops, therefore, increases resilience and sustainability in farms.