At the 2024 Wheat College, Ray Archuleta had a message for growers that was both hopeful and a warning.
“Agriculture can heal the planet by itself without changing anything else. I believe agriculture is the answer for the future,” he said. “Regenerative agriculture is not for everyone. I’m going to be brutally honest. Regenerative agriculture is for people that want freedom, and freedom is not for free. It’s tough. You have to manage better. You have to think. What I do promise is regenerative ag will give you freedom from a lot of the inputs and make it more financially viable to bring others in (to a farming operation).”
More than 75 growers joined Archuleta last month in Davenport, Wash., at the Agricultural Marketing and Management Organization’s annual grower event. Archuleta is a certified professional soil scientist with the Soil Science Society of America and has over 30 years of experience working for the Natural Resources Conservation Service. He established the Soil Health Academy to teach biomimicry strategies and agroecology principles for improving soil function. He currently lives in Missouri where he owns and operates a family farm.
When it comes to climate, Archuleta said governments around the world are focusing on the wrong problems, namely CO2. One of the efforts to address CO2 levels is to reduce agriculture and the number of cattle.
“I think the problem that is happening on a global scale is the soil is naked, hungry, thirsty, and running a fever,” he explained. “If we would mimic the way nature farms, we wouldn’t be having these discussions. Soil eats with plants. If you go six months with wheat, you are feeding the soil, but if you leave it bare, the soil is starving.”
He said that approximately 20 to 30% of the earth’s surface is bare because of too much tillage and too much pesticide use. “Death by tools,” he called it. Archuleta was quick to add that organic isn’t the answer as “… some of the most destroyed soils I have seen have been in organic farms.” Instead, Archuleta focuses on four things when he looks at farming operations:
- How much sun is the soil getting, because more photosynthesis means more diversity of life, and 50% of all biodiversity is in the soil.
- The water cycle.
- The nutrient cycle.
- How much biodiversity is actually present.
“You need to bring the pieces together to understand the whole. Any time there is a problem in the field, I back off and look at how things are connected. Don’t separate things into pieces,” he explained.
Archuleta acknowledged that farming in a way that mimics nature challenges the current model of farming. He recommended finding like-minded growers and working together and doing one’s own test plots and research. He also recommended the Haney soil test, which uses unique soil extracts in the lab to determine what quantity of soil nutrients are available to soil microbes.”
“Don’t try to do it alone. It’s too complex,” he said.
One of the key elements in Archuleta’s regenerative agriculture method is cover crops, which he said helps boost soil biology by increasing soil aggregates and helping water infiltration and microbes. However, they do need to be designed properly, or they can “suck up water.” Cover crops also help cash crops, like wheat, by leaving a path for the roots to follow, meaning the cash crop doesn’t have to expend as much energy. He pointed to research by Dr. Buz Kloot showing increased organic matter, phosphorus, and soil pH after three years of cover crops.
Regenerative agriculture usually also includes animals; animals replace a fallow system and provide an additional opportunity for growers to make money.
In response to a grower’s question about making cover crops work in an 8-to-10-inch rainfall zone, Archuleta said he couldn’t see it working without cattle, but growers need to look at their situation and figure out how to make it work.
Biofarming, or spraying microbes on crops, is another potential avenue for farmers to reduce their reliance on chemical inputs. Archuleta has been working with a group of Pacific Northwest farmers who have been experimenting with unorthodox farming methods.
“It requires farmers to be willing to change and be open minded, innovative, curious, and willing to ask questions, be adaptable, have a holistic view of their farm, and have the desire to change the status quo,” Archuleta said. “I think this is the next way to get away from chemicals and fertilizers.”
The challenges to regenerative agriculture include:
- Crop insurance, which isn’t designed to work outside of conventional farming methods.
- Social conditioning.
- In the current system, it is easy and efficient to grow commodities.
- Financing is geared towards conventional agriculture.
- Most universities and agencies support the current system.
- You have to think and manage. It’s not easy, and farmers will experience failures.
“You have to change the way you think. Mindset is everything,” Archuleta said.
Archuleta recommended that farmers go to YouTube and search “regenerative ag” to learn about what other farmers are doing and the research happening in the field. Other resources can be found at soilhealthacademy.org.
Industry updates
Following Archuleta’s presentation, growers heard industry updates from the Washington Association of Wheat Growers and Scot Hulbert, senior associate dean for Washington State University’s College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences.
After lunch, growers heard from Doug Finkelnburg, a University of Idaho Extension educator who talked about the Pacific Northwest Herbicide Resistance Initiative (PNWHRI), a tri-state effort to reduce yield loss and loss of crop value to weeds by addressing herbicide resistance.
The PNWHRI has received federal funding that supports three U.S. Department of Agriculture research units in Pullman, Wash., and Pendleton, Ore. Finkelnburg said the regional effort is trying to determine which weeds are resistant to which herbicides and building strategies to combat resistance. More information is at pnwhri.org.
The 2024 Wheat College wrapped up with rotations on roots, soil compaction, and soil pH.
