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    CSSHP Growers are Sequestering Carbon

    Carbon Sequestration Progress Soil Organic Carbon
    Graph of Change in sample depth VS change in soil organic matter

    Climate Change can be scary and discouraging, but our CSSHP growers are offering hopeful solutions.  This graph shows how the 6 CSSHP growers who are making the most progress have all increased the Total Organic Carbon in their soils over the last 6 years of our project.  Our growers have been taking carbon out of the atmosphere and sequestering it in their soils.  They have turned CO2 gas into solid organic carbon which their soil microbes turn into more stable forms of soil organic matter.  This carbon will persist in their soils and make their soils and crops more resilient to coming droughts and floods.  Even given Colorado’s high altitude, short growing season, poor shallow alkaline soils, and arid conditions, our CSSHP growers have shown that Colorado farmers and ranchers can remove carbon from the atmosphere to help draw down atmospheric CO2 levels.  This is great news!  Colorado farmers and ranchers can join other growers from California, to Iowa, to Pennsylvania, in sequestering carbon in their soils and in fighting climate change.

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    Characteristics of Fields with Increasing Soil Health

    Irrigation Water Organic Matter Inputs Progress Tillage Intensity
    Graph of Change in sample depth VS change in soil organic matter
    Graph of Change in sample depth VS change in soil organic matter

    We identified the fields in our 6 different crop categories which are making the most progress improving their soil health.  They are Stonebridge Farm (Vegetables, Flowers & Fruit), Olander Farms (Commodity Crops), Lehi Ranch (Commodity/Pasture rotation), Nine Mile Ranch (Pasture Grass & Hay), Longview Farm (Dryland Wheat), and Your Neighborhood Christmas Tree Farm (Home Garden).  These 6 sites share 4 characteristics which have helped them improve their soil’s health.

    1. Supplemental irrigation water: 5 out of 6 of these growers (all except Dryland Wheat) have supplemental irrigation water.  More water means more varied and bigger plants, healthier roots and soil microbes, and the ability to grow fall cover crops and to water grazing livestock year-round.
    2. Decreasing tillage intensity: All 6 growers decreased tillage intensity over 6 years, or maintained it at very low levels. Less tillage means more and healthier soil microbes, especially more fungi, which feed more nutrients to crops. 
    3. Organic Matter Inputs: All 6 growers have added or plan to add significant amounts of organic material to their soil, through imported amendments, grazing, cover crops and crop residues.  It may not matter how you get more organic matter onto your soil, just that you get it there. 
    4. Starting with soils in the “Poor” to “Good” range: None of these 6 growers started with soils that were in the “Excellent” range, where soils may have reached their carbon saturation point.  Some of our CSSHP growers who enrolled in the CSSHP with “Excellent” soils are discouraged because they aren’t seeing their soil health scores improve significantly, despite their best efforts.  It may be that their soils have reached their carbon saturation point, and now they can only build deeper “Excellent” soil, just maintain and make more of, but not improve significantly, the “Excellent” soil they already have.
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    Organic Matter Input use has decreased.

    Compost Manure Organic Matter Inputs Progress
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    Organic Matter Input use has decreased by 13T/acre on average since 2019.  When we examine our successive years of data and divide our sites into their different crop categories, we see that only home gardeners have increased their Organic Matter Inputs in the last 5 years.  All other crop categories have seen a sharp decrease in Organic Matter Inputs.  Commercial Veg/Flower/Fruit growers have seen the biggest decrease.  Our growers identified several possible causes for this decrease. 
    • An exceptionally wet May-June-July in 2023 meant growers had a hard time planting, cultivating and harvesting between storms.  They may not have wanted to or been able to get additional machinery into soggy fields to spread amendments.
    • Fuel and hauling costs for amendments have tripled in recent years, putting amendments out of reach for many growers.  Several have switched to amending with more economical cover crops if they have the water to get them established.
    • Some growers with excessively high phosphorus levels have decided to forego organic matter inputs and use cover crops instead, to avoid increasing their soil phosphorus to dangerous levels.
    • Our very tight labor market meant growers struggled all season to fill vacant positions.  They may not have had enough workers to do things like spread amendments. Additionally, our tight labor market has increased labor costs sharply.  This has affected Commercial Veg-Flower/Fruit growers the most as their crop category is the most labor intensive.  Recent high labor costs may have consumed any profit that formerly paid for purchased amendments. 
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    Most CSSHP growers have used Organic Matter Inputs.

    Compost Grazing Animals Manure Organic Matter Inputs Progress
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    A majority of all our growers have used organic matter inputs (manure, compost, mulches) on their sites in the last 5 years, with home gardeners leading the way.  We only count the organic matter inputs which are acquired off-site in this analysis.  Manure deposited by grazing animals on-site, or clippings from on-site cover crops, are not counted as organic matter inputs here.  Thus, perennial fields with aftermath grazing often appear to have no organic matter inputs, even though they may have many days of grazing animals depositing manure and urine there.
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    Average Tillage Intensity has decreased, part 2.

    Progress Tillage Intensity
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    When we examine the Tillage Intensity of the 191 sites for which we have tillage data and group them into their 5 crop categories, we see that 4 crop groups have made very good progress in reducing their Tillage Intensity, with Commercial Veg/Flower/Fruit sites and Dryland Grains making the most progress.  Perennial Hay/Alfalfa/Pastures have held steady with quite low Tillage Intensity scores.  Home gardens also have low tillage intensity scores, because many of our home gardeners use mostly hand tools, which disturb the soil less and have lower intensity scores.
  • Published on

    Average Tillage Intensity has decreased, part 1.

    Progress Tillage Intensity
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    When we examine just the 51 sites for which we have 5 years of data, we see that our growers have decreased their Tillage Intensity by 17 points over the last 5 years. This is very good news since lower tillage intensity is correlated with better soil health.  We use a Natural Resources Conservation Service soil erosion model to assign a soil disturbance score to all farm operations that compact or disturb soil.  For example, NRCS assigns a single pass with a subsoiler-chisel plow a score of 52.6, a disc harrow gets a score of 11.67, and hay cutting equipment gets a score of 0.15. We total all the scores from each implement used in a field in a calendar year to compute the tillage intensity score for each site.