At the OCA Convention, Farm Director KC Sheperd spoke with Oklahoma Conservation Commission representatives Josh Anderson and James Blom. Anderson and Blom are from the soil health team, so they weighed in on what their role in conservation is.
Blom said, “In terms of conservation, we are leaning towards soil health principals from no-till all the way to crop rotation and cover crops, when it is a fit, and integrating livestock into all of it.”
Anderson is from Marshall County, which doesn’t produce many crops, but he offered advice on getting started with soil conservation methods. “Many producers in our area begin with rotational grazing practices. If they want to do some cropping, they will no-till some of the summer cover crops. Whether they graze those or bale them for hay, those are usually the easiest entry point into soil health principles that I can give people in our area.”
Blom added that tillage creates drought by causing soil moisture loss. He warned that the practices utilized on each acre of land affects other acres down the road through the mechanisms of soil loss, water quality, and water availability.
Anderson said that prepping the ground to absorb and hold rainfall is a key factor in soil conservation. “The big thing is collecting every drop that hits the soil surface. We don’t want all of that water to run off. We want it to infiltrate down so plants can utilize it later.”
Producers are invited to attend the 2nd Annual Crossroads Conference on July 30 in Enid, Oklahoma. “We have three separate tracks that producers can come out and be a part of: a grazing track, a cropland track, and an urban track. We will also have some producer panelists and keynote speaker Colin Seis will be there. He’s from Australia, so he has a really good idea of what it means to use these soil health principles in a drought environment.”
