I would like to talk about the state of the river and how healthy soil plays a big roll in the health of rivers and lakes. A “Green Ideas and Ham” meeting put on by Environment Minnesota I attended this summer had Lark Weller from the National Park Service and Trevor Russell from Friends of the Mississippi River, that talked about the State of the River Report that the National Park Service and Friends of the Mississippi River put together talking about how the river is doing. I have listed the website below so you can read the report.
The report shows that we have been working on helping the rivers by reducing what runs off into them. In some ways the river is looking better, but we still have a long way to go. The report from the MN EPA shows that a lot of the rivers and lake on the southern part of the state have high levels of nitrates in them. With all of the changes that we have made to the landscape and the way we farm today it puts extra demand onto the rivers. We don’t have as much wet land area to help hold the rain runoff so all that water goes right to the rivers and by doing so it pulls in the fertilizers we have been using as well as other pollutants right to the rivers. One thing we can do help make the soil healthy again so it can hold more water and we have less runoff. To do that we need to increase the microbial life in the soil, which will consequently increase the organic matter that will reduce the amount of water running off into the water ways.
The SumaGreen line of microbial soil enhancers are one of the best defenses against excessive water runoff. Tests have shown that SumaGreen significantly improves soil health, root structure, organic matter, water holding capacity, and reduces the need for other inputs so you can reduce input costs.
Filed under: SumaGreen Ag, SumaGreen Forage | Tagged: healthy soil, organic matter, water retention |
Healthy Fields 