So a few days ago I posted about the revolution in agriculture that is slowly taking over everything. The keyword is "regenerative" and it focuses on building soil, naturally. The techniques involved no fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, tilling, etc... although some people use very little of these things to get the results they want, or to "wean off" the chemical farm. (Healthy soil takes years to develop.)
One of the comments I made was about rainfall. I have heard some regenerative guys who own massive tracts of land in the desert say that they seem to get more rain than their neighbors. I thought this was just a weird comment but looking into it, it appears that plants affect the rainfall. We think it is rain that creates more life, but it also appears that life creates more rain. I am not certain how it works, but some people are reporting results that if we were somehow to turn Arizona green, we might see a significant increase in rainfall in Arizona, for instance.
Whether or not that is true, what we know for a fact is that soil that hasn't been tilled and poisoned captures rainfall. That means the rain falls from the sky and gets soaked into the ground. No runoff, no watching your field wash into the ditch. We know that the soil stays moist longer. We know that soil that is covered with plants is cooler and the air is more humid near the soil.
I myself witnessed this effect. We've had bad droughts back-to-back 2021-2023, and a minor drought in 2024. I know for a fact that my field was green while my neighbors were brown. I had growth while my neighbors had none. In fact, I credit goatweed (*croton capitatus*) with creating conditions where the grass continued to grow while everyone else's pastures were barren. Goatweed is a common weed that people try to exterminate in one way or the other. Well, I stopped trying to kill it and it saved my pasture and kept my cows fat even in extended drought periods.
One of the key hallmarks of regenerated soil is that it has the bacteria and funguses present that are necessary for plants to thrive. These funguses can break up clay soil and make sandy soil retain more moisture. There are simple experiments you can do for yourself to show you that the ground is more ready to accept water and more able to retain it. Just invert a jar of water on the soil and see how long it takes to soak in. Or measure the moisture content of your soil day-to-day. Do A-B tests to compare what happens.
I find it curious that chemical farmers always complain "too much rain", "not enough rain", etc... when their neighbors doing regenerative techniques welcome downpours and droughts alike.
There are wonderful resources out there who can explain the experiments they did and what effects they are seeing. They are not selling products. They don't sell seeds, fertilizers, or anything like that. They give away their information to their paid seminars. They write books and self-publish sell them at reasonable prices. If you read the books you'll find all the information is on their YouTube videos, podcasts, and newsletters. If there is a financial incentive to doing it, it's certainly not by selling products or hosting seminars, since they all say that their crops and animals are buying more land for them, or they get out of it as they'd like to retire and pass it on to the next generation.
One of the comments I made was about rainfall. I have heard some regenerative guys who own massive tracts of land in the desert say that they seem to get more rain than their neighbors. I thought this was just a weird comment but looking into it, it appears that plants affect the rainfall. We think it is rain that creates more life, but it also appears that life creates more rain. I am not certain how it works, but some people are reporting results that if we were somehow to turn Arizona green, we might see a significant increase in rainfall in Arizona, for instance.
Whether or not that is true, what we know for a fact is that soil that hasn't been tilled and poisoned captures rainfall. That means the rain falls from the sky and gets soaked into the ground. No runoff, no watching your field wash into the ditch. We know that the soil stays moist longer. We know that soil that is covered with plants is cooler and the air is more humid near the soil.
I myself witnessed this effect. We've had bad droughts back-to-back 2021-2023, and a minor drought in 2024. I know for a fact that my field was green while my neighbors were brown. I had growth while my neighbors had none. In fact, I credit goatweed (*croton capitatus*) with creating conditions where the grass continued to grow while everyone else's pastures were barren. Goatweed is a common weed that people try to exterminate in one way or the other. Well, I stopped trying to kill it and it saved my pasture and kept my cows fat even in extended drought periods.
One of the key hallmarks of regenerated soil is that it has the bacteria and funguses present that are necessary for plants to thrive. These funguses can break up clay soil and make sandy soil retain more moisture. There are simple experiments you can do for yourself to show you that the ground is more ready to accept water and more able to retain it. Just invert a jar of water on the soil and see how long it takes to soak in. Or measure the moisture content of your soil day-to-day. Do A-B tests to compare what happens.
I find it curious that chemical farmers always complain "too much rain", "not enough rain", etc... when their neighbors doing regenerative techniques welcome downpours and droughts alike.
There are wonderful resources out there who can explain the experiments they did and what effects they are seeing. They are not selling products. They don't sell seeds, fertilizers, or anything like that. They give away their information to their paid seminars. They write books and self-publish sell them at reasonable prices. If you read the books you'll find all the information is on their YouTube videos, podcasts, and newsletters. If there is a financial incentive to doing it, it's certainly not by selling products or hosting seminars, since they all say that their crops and animals are buying more land for them, or they get out of it as they'd like to retire and pass it on to the next generation.
It's funny how people try to kill the hardiest plants that are most adapted to the soil and then wonder why everything they plant is dying.