FINAL REPORT

OUR GRANT’S QUESTION WAS: Does providing annual soil health testing, education and team-building lead to broader adoption of practices which improve soil health?
3 YEARS LATER, OUR ANSWER IS: “Yes, for some growers, BUT………”

OUR SUCCESSES: The “Yes, for some growers,” part

For the last 3 years, the Citizen Science Soil Health Project has provided free annual soil health testing to 48 Boulder, Larimer and Weld County growers, using the Haney and PLFA tests.   We have emphasized education, information sharing, team-building, and fellowship in all our activities with CSSHP growers.  (See Table1 CSSHPActivities2019_2021)

We have surpassed our objectives for enrolling new growers, purchasing extra soil health tests, encouraging implementation of new soil health practices, and promoting individual CSSHP growers as subject-matter experts. (See Table2 CSSHPGoalsObjectives2019_2021) 48 growers are now enrolled in the project.  All growers demonstrated a fair understanding of soil health principles upon enrollment, and all were already using at least a couple soil health management practices.  By the fall of 2021, 31 growers reported management changes since the beginning of the project, to increase their soil’s health.  (See Reported Management Changes since the beginning of the CSSHP for list of changes.) A total of 12 CSSHP growers will have presented information on their areas of expertise at our annual meetings and Farm Field Day by 2/22/22.

After three years of soil testing, the CSSHP and our 48 participating growers have been able to demonstrate, with our aggregated soil testing results, that lower pH, increased water availability, improved soil texture, increased organic matter inputs, decreased tillage intensity, and more days of living cover result in better soil health.  As a group, we are able to show the same trends that many previous and more rigorous soil health research projects have shown.  Since our 48 growers are all participating in the locally-based research, they pay more attention to our group findings than they would to a research paper in a scientific journal. (Please see INSIGHTS FROM OUR 2019 and 2020 DATA)

Over the 3 years of the project, we have compiled soil testing results on 378 unique soil samples.  On 175 of those samples we ran Haney plus PLFA tests.  On 203 samples we ran just Haney tests.  We collected 94 test results in 2019, 148 test results in 2020 and 137 test results in 2021. We have gathered testing data on a total of 205 unique sites.  Because growers have entered the project on different years, and because growers can decide how often they want to test the sites they are paying for themselves, different sites have different amounts of data.  We have 3 years’-worth of data on 58 sites, 2 years’-worth of data on 48 sites and 1 year of data on 99 sites. 9 growers entered the project after 2019, so we only have 1-2 years’ worth of data for them.

For the first 2 years of the project, we used our data to show overall trends for the entire group (See INSIGHTS FROM OUR 2019 and 2020 DATA).  We also used our data to show our growers how they compared with others in their peer group on 10 soil health indicators and 3 soil health practices. (See Example3IndividualizedProgressReport2019).   Only by the winter of 2022 do we have enough consecutive years of data (3 years) to analyze most of our growers’ progress on improving their soil’s health.

Almost half our growers had not tested their soil recently or at all, prior to involvement in the CSSHP.  (See Table3 PreviousSoilTesting)  A sizeable minority was unaware of fertility and nutrient balancing issues prior to their participation, so our testing has been valuable for these growers from a fertility and profitability standpoint.

  Our soil testing program has also helped some growers with management decisions.  We provide all our growers with two major reports annually.  The first report is a soil testing results report (See CSSHP User Friendly Haney PLFA Results) which we send out as soon as we receive their test results from the lab.  The second report is their year-end Individualized Progress Report (See Example3IndividualizedProgressReport2019) which we send out in February of the following year, after we compile and analyze our grower’s year-end reports.

According to our recent poll, about half (23) of CSSHP growers fully understand their soil testing results and use this information to drive management decisions (See Table4 HowUseSoilHealthTests).  The remaining CSSHP growers prefer a different test, have found an outside advisor to assist them in management decisions, or are challenged to understand their test results.

Growers have demonstrated a greater understanding of their confidential individualized year-end reports (See Table5 HowUseYearEndReports).  Our year-end reports show growers how they compare with their peers on 10 important Haney and PLFA soil health indicators (soil organic matter, soil 

respiration, organic nitrogen, organic carbon, carbon-nitrogen ratio, pH, available N, available P, available K, total microbial biomass and Fungi : Bacteria ratio), as well as three management practices (days of living cover, organic matter inputs and tillage intensity).  Growers are divided into two peer groups for comparison: the Tilled Fields Group and the Zero Tillage Group.  The reports contain more graphics and fewer categories to decipher than the individual soil test results.  It is designed so that a grower can easily see if they fall into the top, middle or bottom of the pack.  (See Example3IndividualizedProgressReport2019) This may explain why more growers understand their year-end report better than their test results

Finally, perhaps partly as a result of our project, and also due to increasing public recognition of the importance of soils, our region has seen several new soil health initiatives at the local and state levels in the last 3 years:

• The City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks Department has created a permanent position for a Soil Health Coordinator to oversee the soils of their 15,000 acres of City-owned agricultural lands. Over the past 2 years, the coordinator tested baseline soil samples from 100+ sites with the Haney test. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/34db814236e34e2b81d91805e0d1160b
• Boulder County Parks and Open Space has revised their Cropland Policy to develop a soil health program with 67 tenants on their 25,000 acres of County-owned agricultural lands, using practices such as cover cropping, compost addition and reduced tillage. https://www.bouldercounty.org/open-space/management/cropland-policy/
• The Colorado State Conservation Board has initiated a soil health STAR program in partnership with 17 local conservation districts, including our local conservation districts. https://ag.colorado.gov/soil-health
• The University of Colorado Center for Sustainable Landscapes and Communities featured soil health and some of our findings in their 2021 Ecosystem Trends Report for Boulder County. https://cslc.colorado.edu/2020-trends/category/Soil%20Health
• For the last 3 years, Boulder County has funded a Sustainable Food and Agriculture Grant Program for regenerative agriculture and soil health practices. $405,000 was allocated to the program for 2022 grants.  https://www.bouldercounty.org/environment/sustainability/ag-grant-program/

Our project has benefited financially from this increased focus on soil health in our region.  We have received financial support from Boulder County Parks and Open Space Foundation, Rocky Mountain Farmer’s Union, the Boulder Valley and Longmont Conservation Districts, District 6 Water Users Association, St. Vrain and Lefthand Water Conservancy District, Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks, Boulder Open Space Conservancy, the Maverick Foundation, Boulder County Office of Sustainability, the Colorado Carbon Fund, the Denver Foundation and 6 private individuals.  We have received grants from St. Vrain and Lefthand Water Conservancy District and are applying for a grant from Boulder County Sustainable Food and Agriculture Fund.

OUR FAILURES:  The “BUT……” part

 Failure #1: We have not been very successful at strengthening connections between different factions of our agricultural community, nor have growers participated in community outreach events. Covid has really impacted this part of our project, since large indoor winter-time meetings are not wise, and many of our growers have struggled to reconfigure their operations during the pandemic. Our 2021 annual meeting was held over Zoom and our 2022 meeting may be as well.  In-person meetings increase fellowship much better than Zoom meetings. Despite small gains in fellowship, schisms between organic and conventional growers remain. (See Table6 CSSHPGoalsObjectives2019_2021)

Failure #2: Our 2019 goal was for CSSHP growers’ soil organic matter, soil health scores and days of living cover to all trend upward by 2021. (See Table6 CSSHPGoalsObjectives2019_2021) We now see that this goal was unrealistic, but our results are still disappointing. All 3 indicators saw improvement on only half or fewer of the sites for which we have 3 years-worth of data.  (See Table7ProgressChanging3SHIndicators) These results are what one would expect from random variation, and not from focused efforts to improve soil health. 

Our lack of progress to increase days of living cover by the addition of cover crops is especially disappointing.  Days of living cover is a soil health indicator which a grower can change in one season.  Of the very large number of sites showing no change in days of living cover (29 sites, 53%), 27 are pasture, already having 365 days of living cover.  However, there was a net decrease in days of living cover for our remaining tilled sites.

 Our net decrease in days of living cover correlates with the very slow adoption of cover cropping by CSSHP growers.  Several of our small organic vegetable growers were cover-cropping fields before they enrolled in the project.  They have continued to do so, albeit erratically and not on every field.  Some of them stopped cover-cropping in 2021 due to covid labor shortages, which might explain part of our net decrease in days of living cover over the last 3 years.  4 growers (out of 48, or 8%) have persistently and successfully increased their use of cover crops, despite germination failures, goose predation and fall water challenges. Several other growers talk about cover cropping but don’t get around to it, or try it (inter-seeding especially), don’t see results, and question its worth.  Ag change comes very slowly.

Failure #3: Another disappointment is that we have not been able to show improvement of individual growers’ key soil health indicators over the last 3 years.  Our composite data clearly shows the effects of pH, water availability, soil texture, timing of tests, organic matter inputs, tillage intensity, and days of living cover on soil health.  However, year-to-year comparison of individual grower’s data shows erratic variation, with no clear trends.

CSSHP growers are disappointed with their erratic soil health test results.  Before they invest money in new management, many of them want to ascertain that soil health and profitability improvements are certain.  Due to Colorado’s inconsistent seasonal variations, grower’s crop rotations and the inherent erratic-ism in the citizen science model, we need several more years of test results and analysis to show our growers clear trends over the “background noise”.

We are working with research advisor Brian Anacker and laboratory director Lance Gunderson of Regen Ag Lab to understand the causes of individual growers’ variability.  It could be from changing to a different lab in 2020, from variable environmental conditions, variable sampling dates and techniques, or something else entirely. 

In our variability analysis, we have noticed one pattern which we have named “The Stability of Shittiness” and its corollary, “The Bounciness of the Best”.  Soil health indicators (Organic C, Organic N, Soil Organic Matter, and Soil Respiration) of our lowest scoring sites remain fairly stable year to year, and do not change very much.  However our highest scoring sites experience very large swings in their soil health indicators, far larger than one would expect from the normal coefficients of variation from a laboratory. (See Table 8 CompairingVariance)

One possible explanation for this pattern of variability for our soil respiration results lies in the variable hardiness of different microbial groups.  It could be that in soils which have poor overall soil health and which have endured many extreme tillage assaults, only the toughest microbes survive. These tough microbes may persist stubbornly, no matter what, forming a stable base population.  Perhaps as a soil improves, less hardy microbial groups prosper in the soil ecosystem.  Perhaps these less hardy microbial groups are more susceptible to environmental, nutrient and management changes, resulting in large annual swings in their populations.  We will investigate this hypothesis further in coming years, exploring the literature and analyzing our PLFA results to see if they can shed any light on this hypothesis.

Our variable hardiness hypothesis could explain the variability in our soil respiration results, and to some extent in our Organic C and Organic N results.  However, it does not explain the variability in our soil organic matter results. According to the literature, soil organic matter is very stable and very hard to change in the short term.  However we are seeing an 8-73% variation in our soil organic matter scores, with an average 32% variability and median 29% variability for each site for which we have 3 year’s-worth of results.  This observed variability in soil organic matter is very confusing.

Failure #4: Only half of our participating growers understand their test results and which actions are indicated. (See Table4 HowUseSoilHealthTests)  The other half has a hard time understanding their results and knowing which actions to take, have found someone else to interpret the test and advise them on which actions to take, or are ignoring the test results. That gives our project a 50% passing grade, which is not acceptable in any grading system I am familiar with.

LESSONS LEARNED: New directions for the CSSHP

Lesson #1:  Three years is too short.  The CSSHP is a 10-year-long project, and our failures show that it’s a good thing that we have given ourselves 10 years to accomplish our goals. In the 21st century, we expect organizations and sectors to be nimble, able to change as quickly as the world around us.  We expect them to rapidly adapt to new technologies, to turn on a dime like a drone.  But agriculture is NOT like a nimble drone, flitting to and fro.  Rather, it is like a huge super tanker, taking an exceedingly long time to turn.  In agriculture, there is usually only one shot per year to try something new, and many reasons why that one shot might or might not work in that year, which then requires more years of testing, tweaking, and retesting.  That is why the CSSHP is a 10 year long project. It is also why it will take us more than three years to figure out whether providing annual soil health testing, education and team-building leads to broader adoption of practices that improve soil health

Lesson #2: Simply providing soil tests is not enough.  Providing CSSHP growers with free soil health tests has not been enough to incentivize management changes or to clarify the state of a field’s soil health for all growers.  Free soil health tests HAVE helped about 50% of our growers understand the health of their soil.  Free soil health tests have also led to some management changes for some CSSHP growers.  But more is needed. 

This fall, we asked CSSHP growers how we can improve the CSSHP and make it more useful for them going forward.  Their overwhelming choice was to provide more individual consults with soil health experts, similar to the individual consults which Lance Gunderson provided 19 CSSHP growers in 2020.  Second and third choices are “more presentations from fellow CSSHP growers” and “help with funding for soil health improvements”.  (See Table9 HowToImproveCSSHP) 

Lesson #3:  We need more local experts to advise growers.  Our growers universally loved their individual consults with Lance Gunderson of Regen Ag Lab, in the winter of 2020.  With their first year of soil testing results in hand, they could ask Lance what their results meant and how to improve their soils.  Lance’s 10 years of experience analyzing over 50,000 soil health samples gave him a breadth and depth of experience which our growers immediately recognized.  But Lance lives in Nebraska and has a very busy schedule.  Our growers need a local expert to ask for help, but our local agronomists are only just now becoming familiar with soil health tests.  They have little-to-no expertise interpreting soil health tests for others.  We have involved local agronomists in our project to increase their familiarity with soil health testing, but they need an intensive crash course on interpreting soil health test results and advising growers.  Addressing this need is outside the scope of the CSSHP.  The State or USDA would be well-served to train all local soil conservation district managers to interpret soil health tests for growers.

 Lesson #4: Six page reports are too long. We send our growers 2 different reports each year: 1) their soil test results with color coding, normal ranges and explanations of each value and 2) their year-end individualized progress report, which shows them how they compare with their peers on 10 soil health indicators and 3 soil health practices.  Each report is 6+ pages long, and is simply too much information for many of our growers to absorb.  A large portion of our growers would benefit from a “Recommended Action” cover page for our year-end reporting. The Recommended Actions must be simple, concrete, clear, individualized actions which are based on the grower’s soil testing results and field conditions.

Lesson #5: It was unwise to put all our eggs into one basket (one soil health test).  To date, we have relied mainly on the Haney test in our analysis of soil health conditions and progress at participating sites.  It would have been wiser to include a secondary back-up soil assessment tool, even a more subjective one.  A qualitative ranking tool, where a grower circles words which best describe their soil would not only provide useful correlation, but could also bring growers into closer physical interaction with their soil.

Lesson #6: It takes a long time and lots of hard work to rebuild trust.  It doesn’t take long to lose a person’s trust, but it can take years to win it back.  Potluck meals, dorky introduction games, group activities and custom-branded hats have not been enough to tear down some walls between factions of our growers.  We will continue to work on rebuilding fellowship, with more of the same, plus humorous Soiley awards, small group exercises, a virtual soil health web forum, a CSSHP website, and video profiles of 6 CSSHP growers.  If covid would give us a break, this work could proceed more easily.

THANK YOU!

Thank you very much for funding the first 3 years of the Citizen Science Soil Health Project.  Your financial support has been essential to our successes to date.  Over the next 7 years of the CSSHP, we plan to incorporate the 6 Lessons Learned from our first 3 years, and change and expand our efforts.  To address our areas of failure, the CSSHP will add management recommendations, referrals to local soil health experts and cost-sharing referrals to our test-reporting program.  We will plumb our data to identify sources of variability and add grower’s qualitative observations to supplement soil-test data.  We will expand our team-building efforts to include a website, small-group problem solving exercises, and promotion of participating growers as subject matter experts.  We will continue to monitor our growers’ practices, attitudes and understanding to ascertain whether these actions lead to an increased adoption of soil health practices, more fellowship, more information sharing, and the emergence of local soil health leaders among our participating growers.

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The Citizen Science Soil Health Project is a 10-year research project which pays for one annual Haney and one biennial Phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) soil health tests for each participating grower. The Haney test gives each grower an annual soil health score, which growers try to improve over the 10-year study period.  Growers are compared ONLY to themselves over time, and their individual test results remain confidential.  Growers’ initial soil health scores vary widely, since each grower’s management and native soils are very different.  The project tracks only the relative change in each grower’s soil health score and does not compare growers with each other.  However, we  give growers the group’s ranges of results for each data point, so growers can see where they fall within the entire group’s results.

Participating growers agreed to:

•  Participate in the project for 10 years;
•  Attend a class on how to take soil samples;
•  Take soil samples in the same area at the same time each year;
•  Fill out an annual questionnaire;
•  Attend one annual potluck meeting covering yearly business, team-building exercises, and a short class, and;
•  No shaming/badmouthing of other participating growers. 
• Growers can change soil management practices as long as they document what they are doing. 

Our annual questionnaire is an important part of our research.  Our year-1 baseline questionnaire assesses growers’ knowledge of soil health, current soil management, and current soil testing practices.  We also ask growers to choose an initial question which they want their soil health testing to answer: for instance “Is my current soil management improving my soil health?”, or “What are the effects of my current crop rotation on soil health?”  This question helps growers choose the location and timing of their soil sample collection, and emphasizes that they are the investigating citizen scientists.  

Subsequent year-end questionnaires ask growers about: their previous year’s soil management; soil inputs such as fertilizers, compost, mulch, cover crops, etc.; days of living cover; the costs per acre of their inputs; tilling methods and timing; water availability and timing; incorporation of animals; effects of above on yield; unusual weather at the soil sampling site; helpful information needed; and preferred meeting times. 

We compile the data from each grower annually into individualized progress reports, with easy-to-read graphics and spreadsheets. The individualized progress report allows growers to track how their soil health has changed over the project time-frame, what might account for that change, and where they fall within the range of group results.

To accomplish Objective #1, (Increase soil health knowledge and use of soil health tests by Front Range growers), we offer the following inducements: free annual Haney/PLFA soil health tests (Regen Ag Lab) for 10 years; additional Haney/PLFA soil health tests at 10% discount; a new soil probe; and a $50 stipend for each soil sample collected for the first 3 years of the project.   We solicit new participating growers for the project through year 4.  We include educational material in all questionnaires, newsletters and meetings with participating growers.  We also produce a short annual class as part of each annual meeting.  We continue to raise funds to pay for all 10 years of the project, in order to obtain long-range data.  Boulder’s Open Space Departments, Sustainability Office, Farmers Market, Conservation Districts and Water Conservancy Districts have all granted funds to the project.  Donations from local businesses and research grants will be solicited for additional funding for years 4-10 of the project.  Success is measured by the number of participating growers in the project, how many decide to purchase additional soil health tests and the number of growers who implement new soil health management practices.

To accomplish Objective #2 (Improve key soil health indicators of participating growers), we include educational material about soil health practices in all grower questionnaires, newsletters, meetings and individualized progress reports.   We track, compile and distribute data on soil organic matter, soil health scores and days of living cover.  We ask growers making the largest gains to give short presentations at annual meetings.  Success is measured by our growers’ changes in soil health scores, soil organic matter, and number of days/year of living cover.

To accomplish Objective #3 (Strengthen connections between different factions of Colorado’s agricultural community), we do not tolerate any bad-mouthing of other participants.  We include team-building activities such as “speed-dating”, socializing and meal sharing at each annual meeting (at a grange hall rather than a government office).  We emphasize that no one grower has all the answers, but collectively the group already has almost all the answers.  Success is measured by the number of growers who are willing to talk about their soil health practices with rest of the group and participate in outreach events.