Keeping Your Soil Resilient in a Changing Climate

Helping Garden and Landscape Soils with Climate Change

No one doubts that our climate is changing. Extensive research and modeling of climate patterns has done by many organizations around the world and they have been compiling predictions for what our climate will look like in the coming decades. 

• In general, everywhere is experiencing a warming trend. In many places that means a wetter winter. 
• Summers will be warmer and drier in many locations
• Drier years will be intensified with many areas experiencing drought conditions more frequently.

As our climate trends more towards these new patterns, we may begin to experience the effects of these new trends on our landscapes, fields and gardens. The possible effects of these different climate patterns are:

• Longer growing seasons with increased demand on low summer water resources
• Possible yield reductions due to heat and/or drought stress
• Crops viable to a given region may change
• Possible yield reduction in forage crops
• Lower growth rates and milk production in livestock

These predictions should raise concern, but there are steps you can take to help mitigate the impacts of these trends on our landscapes. Through building health and resiliency in our soils, we can better adapt to a changing climate. 

What is Resilient Soil?

Healthy soil is a living substance teaming with a wide diversity of life, from arthropods to fungi to protozoa to small mammals. Soil is the living interface between the geology and the biology of the earth. It serves as a transformative layer converting stone into the biodiversity that the earth sustains. 

Some basic characteristics of healthy soil are:

• A soft, crumbly texture with clumps and pore spaces (like a sponge)
• Reactive to the environment, warms quickly in spring
• Maintains the capacity to soak up large amounts of water during times of heavy rains with minimal run-off
• Has the capacity to store water during drought periods
• Resists erosion and nutrient loss
• Produces high yields of healthy plant life without large amounts of chemical inputs

Soils that have the above characteristics could go a long way in maintaining our crops, gardens, fields and landscapes through extreme weather events and would better adapt to changes in long term climate patterns. 

Building Healthy, Resilient Soil

There are many ways to nurture health and resiliency in our soils. One of the best models is to manage our soils in the same way that nature manages soils. Undisturbed soils tend to be more resilient to changes in climate than soils that have been cultivated or managed in yards and recreational areas. 

In observing the environment, you may notice nature manages soils in the following ways:

• Soil is always covered - bare soil is a rarity
• Polycultures - many species living together
• Reliance on soil organisms to till the soil
• A closed loop of organic input, breakdown and re-uptake of nutrients

Armed with the above observations, we can begin to devise management strategies for our own soils that mimic nature to build health and resiliency back into degraded soils, or to maintain the integrity of soils that are already healthy. 

The following are ways we can manage our soils for increased soil tilth and productivity:

• Keep soils covered - use multi-species cover crops, dense crop plantings with companion crops, mulch and residue
• Diversity - diversity among plant communities builds symbiotic relationships, creates more complex exchanges of nutrients and natural pest controls, and increases diversity of life within the soil, thereby allowing the entire system to function better.
• No-till or low-till practices - these can be implemented in large scale cropping systems or small backyard gardens, but be sure to balance tilling practice with the minimal application of pesticides.
• Build organic matter by allowing leaves, expired crops or lawn clippings to decompose into the soil, add compost or manure, roll cover crops, and/or leave residue to decompose into the soil. 

How to Improve Farms, Pastures, and Lawns

Soil health techniques can be practiced at any scale. Whether you are a large-scale crop producer or you're trying to maintain a healthy lawn, you can incorporate all of the above techniques into your land-use activities. 

Lawns can be diversified with many different grass species as well as legumes and forbs. Cropping systems can be diversified through crop rotations, companion plantings and cover cropping.

Focusing on health and resilience of our soils will not only create a healthier system overall, but will prepare all our landscapes for changing weather patterns in the future.