Our community of regional land-managers have a significant and vital role to play at this time in human history. The latest publication by former NASA researcher and colleagues; James Hansen et. al, specifies that to reach our target for keeping earth’s temperature increases below 2 degrees C, we will need to move swiftly to deploy negative emissions strategies, including improved agricultural and forestry practices. Our strategy for building soil health focuses on regional geographies (food, water and fibershed scale). The Citizen Science Soil Sampling Protocol was developed in collaboration with UC Davis’s Gaudin Lab. This soil carbon testing method provides producers a tool for assessing how their management is effecting soil carbon stocks.
Once a producer has implemented the Citizen Science Protocol and received their results, they will have what is known as a soil carbon baseline figure that denotes the total organic carbon content in that soil type. Understanding soil carbon baseline is a useful number for a land manager to have reference to. This number is particularly helpful to have in hand prior to implementing a carbon farm plan, and or an individual practice known to enhance soil carbon levels. Understanding baseline will allow a land-manager to determine changes in soil carbon levels over time.
The good news is that we aren’t starting from scratch when we consider what practices to implement, we already know (based on the learning that took place after the Dust Bowl alone) what we can do to increase carbon capture on our landscapes, which in turn mitigates erosion, and increases water holding capacity in dry soils. For more information see our Carbon Farm Education Page.
If you are a Northern California Fibershed producer member, our organization can lend you the tools to take your own soil samples. We have also teamed up with UC Davis to process your samples. As a benefit of being part of our producer program, your sampling is currently being offered for free. Please email: firstname.lastname@example.org and put “soil sampling protocol” in the subject line for information on the tool lending library.
Photos by Paige Green, Videography by Bright Path Video