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Resources to maximize soil health on farms in Sonoma, Napa, and Mendocino Counties |
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IN THIS EDITION
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Grower Profile: Red Boutaghou, FilRouge Vineyard
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Scientist Profile: Cristina Lazcano, PhD, UC Davis
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BMP Spotlight: Riparian Corridors in Agriculture
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From the Field: Droughts and Water-Holding Capacity of Soils
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What's New at the Hub: Find us on Instagram
- Upcoming Events
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Red Boutaghou, FilRouge Vineyard:
An Interview with Miguel Garcia, Napa RCD
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What motivated you to collect samples to asses your vineyard's soil health?
A lot of planning and personal hard work went into planting our nearly-a-year-old home vineyard in Mt. Veeder last year! We are committed to ensuring the long-term health of our vines, and do believe that everything begins with investing in soil health.
How did Napa RCD help you understand your soil's health?
We are willing students, and value learning from others’ experience and expertise. Over the past three years, Napa RCD’s workshops have helped us become better informed on a wide range of best practices. We trust Napa RCD as a resource, so it was only natural to seek their help this year with on-site visits, (properly) taking a soil sample in our vineyard, understanding the results of the soil analysis, and getting Napa RCD’s feedback on the lab recommendations.
How can RCDs continue to help you reach a higher level of soil health in the future?
We appreciate & look forward to the variety of soil health workshops Napa RCD offers during the year, and hope these continue so we and other growers can remain current and well-informed.
We have sought and received guidance from Napa RCD for three years- even before we were growers- when our home vineyard was still in ideation. We value the continued access to the tools, technology, and guidance from the Napa RCD team.
Has COVID-19 changed your approach to farming this year? Do you think it will change your approach to farming in future years?
The silver lining of complying with the SIP orders over the past few months is that we have been able to devote more of our time and energy to farming, which we both love!
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Cristina Lazcano, PhD
Assistant Professor of Soil Ecology and Plant Nutrition
Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, UC Davis
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What brought you into this career path?
My career path is the result of a good mix of personal and educational experiences combined with the right amount of serendipity and lots of hard work. Growing up in the countryside in Galicia (Spain) I developed a great appreciation for the intimate interaction between agriculture and nature. In my teen years, that appreciation became determination to protect this delicate balance and I decided I was going to focus my career towards environmental protection. Through high school and my bachelors in Biology I had excellent teachers in Geology and Soil Science and soon became aware of the tremendous value of soils in supporting environmental quality and human livelihoods. Soils are fascinating in the sense that they are mysterious, unknown, and difficult to observe. Yet, if you look closely, they tell you the whole history of a landscape. A single teaspoon of soil contains a whole universe of microbial life and the power to create life from the dead by decomposing organic matter. Soils are intricately linked to human livelihoods and human health in so many different ways that soil protection is not only a matter of environmental protection but a matter of societal progress. It is this multidimensionality of soil science that made me fall completely in love with this discipline. Then, a serendipitous event led to a graduate student position right after finishing my bachelors and after that, through lots of hard work, obtaining a graduate scholarship, visiting several labs, working at important universities and finally, to my current position at the University of California Davis.
What has inspired you about the winegrape industry over the last several years?
The focus of my research is finding the connections between soil biota, soil health, crop nutrition and quality. In no other crop there is such a great appreciation for the connection between soils, the environment, and the quality of the crop such as in winegrapes; providing the perfect framework to develop my research questions. Also, the dynamic and innovative character of the winegrape industry in California makes my job as a soil scientist really enjoyable. Growers are becoming aware of the important role of vineyards in sequestering soil carbon and contributing to environmental quality, they are open to incorporating sustainable management and actively seek for collaboration with researchers. I feel that the wine industry is ahead of the game in the sense that there is a certain respect for the land which is not seen in many other crops (yet).
What does the future of sustainability look like to you in this industry?
Agriculture in general has a strong impact in the environment. For the long-term sustainability of agriculture and society, we need to increase the adoption rates of sustainable soil management practices. For that we need science, to balance the agronomic and environmental outcomes of these practices, and we need strong policies, subsidies and regulations so sustainable practices such as the use of cover crops are the rule and not the exception. People are resistant to change but change is needed if we want to reverse the alarming rates of environmental pollution that we are currently seeing.
In terms of scientific advances, there has been particularly a lot of progress recently in the study of the soil microbiome and its role on crop productivity and quality. I think that the agricultural industry will see a boom in biotechnology in the next years that will lead to novel strategies to engineer the soil microbiome for different purposes (nutrient supply, disease control, management of abiotic stress) and move away from agrochemicals. In winegrape production we know that soil microorganisms can be transferred into the grapes and have an influence in the fermentation process and wine quality. What this means is that soil microbes may be responsible to a large extent of the so-called terroir effect. What we still need to understand is how we can fine tune soil management strategies to manipulate the microbiome in order to obtain a specific grape chemical profile or a desired yield.
As a scientist, what do you see as the greatest challenges to agriculture in reducing our impacts on our climate?
The biggest challenge right now is the lack of time. We are seeing alarming rates in greenhouse gas emissions, increases in average global temperature, changing rainfall patterns, and extreme weather events. All this is having a strong impact in agricultural production and our everyday lives right now. The science is clear in pointing at the causes and we have the knowledge and the tools to reverse these trends, we just need action. Scientists can come up with the most creative solutions to reduce emissions and increase carbon sequestration, but still, adoption rates for climate smart practices are too far behind. Our modern farming practices have been designed without the natural resources in mind and this is a problem, we need to re-think these farming systems to preserve soils, water and air resources, reduce waste and increase efficiency while maintaining productivity. We can’t just ask farmers to take on this burden, changing the production system is a big task that requires the coordinate action of scientists, farmers and policymakers. Most importantly, we need strong leadership that will make the hard decisions. I am hopeful that change will happen, I am seeing policies that incentivize the use of climate smart farming practices in California and other parts of the US. Mitigating the impacts of climate change is also one of the priorities of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, which offers incentives for the adoption of practices that preserve soil and water quality and increase soil carbon sequestration.
What are some significant changes you have witnessed in growing practices/challenges for growers?
In recent years I have seen an increasing appreciation of the importance of soils for providing important services in agroecosystems and for climate regulation at the global level. Today most people understand the importance of preserving this non-renewable resource, and the concept of soil health is widely accepted and embraced by researchers, farmers, governmental and non-governmental organizations alike. Thanks to the work of researchers and extension specialists who investigated the profitability and suitability of sustainable soil management practices for California agriculture, we have a better understanding on how we can preserve soils. Overall, I think we have come a long way, but there is still much to do. Growers have to juggle several immediate pressing issues such as water scarcity and a changing climate, preserving soils may seem like a long-term investment but, in reality, these are all interrelated issues and we cannot find a solution until we include soils in the equation.
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Best Management Practice Spotlight |
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Restoring Riparian Corridors on Agriculture Lands |
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Healthy, thriving riparian corridors provide numerous benefits to farmers and other living things. Restoring riparian corridors improves water quality, creates habitat for beneficial native wildlife, and increases carbon sequestration on your property. Healthy riparian corridors also help prevent erosion and sedimentation.
Huichica Creek Sustainable Demonstration Vineyard, owned and operated by Napa RCD, borders XX miles of Huichica Creek. Since Napa RCD acquired the property in the 1980s, the creek has gone through a major transformation. As you can see below, Huichica Creek's banks were denuded and provided a perfect canal to carry eroded soil off the property with each rain event. Napa RCD set back the vineyard and all related farming activity from the creek, giving plants from surrounding areas room to reoccupy the riparian corridor with their seeds. Many of the plants you see in more recent photos came back on their own when we limited our activity in the riparian area. Over the years, Napa RCD staff and volunteers have planted other native plants to enhance the biodiversity on the farm. Now, the property has a healthy riparian corridor that supports native plants and animals (such as beaver, deer, turkey, and bobcat) and stabilizes the creek banks to help control erosion.
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Droughts and the Water Holding Capacity of Soil
By Frances Knapczyk (Napa RCD)
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Can we make our soils more drought resilient? Yes!
The trend is clear, we are in a long-term drought. What can we do about it? Well thankfully, we have a lot of room to make our farming (and our communities) more drought resilient. In the vineyard, we can manipulate how much, when, and where we irrigate to maximize water use efficiency. And, we can take steps to make our soils become better sponges, so that they require less water via irrigation in the first place. For example, increasing organic matter in soils has been shown time and again to improve water holding capacity by about 20,000 gallons per acre.
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Our Instagram is now up and running! |
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We have created a North Coast Soil Hub Instagram account! We are taking advantage of opportunities to be more relevant and helpful to our fellow growers, farmers, and ranchers, and this is just one more way we are hoping to spread the love of soil science to the world!
Gold Ridge RCD: @GoldRidgeRCD - Napa RCD: @NapaRCD
Sonoma RCD: @SonomaRCD
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