The Healthy Soils / Carbon Farming Project
Partnering with California Division of Food and Agriculture and the Department of Water Resources, under the guidance of Alameda County Resource Conservation District and Natural Resource Conservation Service, we have a carbon farming/healthy soils project in progress.
Carbon farming helps to capture greenhouse gasses and hold carbon in the vegetation and soil. In addition to the positive impact to the environment, we hope to have increased forage in the carbon farmed areas. Others have seen a 25% increase in their forage.
In December of 2019, after a rain, a light layer of compost was applied to two areas on our ranch. The compost will be applied annually to the same areas for three years. By applying the compost we hope to improve soil structure, provide a wide range of nutrients for native plants, and add beneficial microbes to the soil.
Before the compost was applied in one area, we worked with the California Conservation Corps and one of our friends to rake the thatch in the field to allow the compost to be evenly applied to the ground.
An important piece of this project was to find clean compost meeting matter specifications provided by the supporting agencies. Vision Recycling in Livermore was able to deliver the specified compost.
