Regenerative Ag's 5 principles for soil health

1. Limited Disturbance

• Mechanical and Chemical 
• Tillage destroys soil structure, releases CO2 and kills microbes, specifically mycorrhizal fungi (tilled soil erodes at 20 times the speed of no-till soil)
• Chemicals - fertilisers, herbicides, fungicides and pesticides kill soil biology

2. Armour

• Always keep your soils covered from the sun, wind and rain
• Crop residue - don't remove, don't burn
• Cover Crops - feed your soil biology
• Trampling - get uneaten material close to the earth so it doesn't block the sun for emerging growth and doesn't oxidise (decomposes instead)

3. Diversity

• Strive for diversity in both plant and animal species - nature doesn't do monocultures

4. Living Roots

• Maintain a living root system in the soil for as many days of the year as you can
• Without photosynthesis there are no root exudates to feed soil biology
• Without photosynthesis there is no transpiration

5. Integrate animals

• Nature does not function without animals
• Grazing (pastures or cover crops) stimulates plant to put more carbon in the soil, feeding the soil biology and the urine, dung and saliva stimulate that biology, taking productivity to a new level

Impact of Diversity and Livestock

Look at this graph on soil carbon levels and look what happened when the cover crops changed to multi-species and livestock were introduced.  Synthetic nitrogen application was stopped in 2004 and 15 years later is still not needed. Image credit: Dave Johnson