Plants Dig Soil™

#RealisticRegenAg | In the very first season of Plants Dig Soil I talked about soil health tests. Has anything changed since then? In my opinion no, not really. There are tests that are getting closer to wide scale adoption, but I just don’t see any of them worthwhile yet. In this episode I’ll cover the thinking I had then as tohow to approach evaluating them and I’ll cover how I assess soil healt...

#RealisticRegenAg | I was taught to kill the life in the soil. After all, we wanted to grow crops and we needed to get rid of the pests. That view is shifting, and books like “Farming with Soil Life” help move the needle on this important topic. Join me in this episode where I review this new resource put out by the Xerces Society through the SARE publishing program. Welcome to Plants Dig Soil. My...

#RealisticRegenAg | A board position for the Prairie Certified Crop Advisors is open and I’ve decided to run for it. If you’re a CCA check your emails and look for the announcement. The voting is done by email and needs to be in by Friday July 14th (not the 4th as originally stated in the email). If you didn’t get the email send one to Mary-Jane Debreuil . This is what I’m running on. Let me know...

#RealisticRegenAg | I’ve noticed more and more research that is directed at solving real world problems with regenerative practices. Stay tuned for this and other news in regenerative agriculture this month. Welcome to Plants Dig Soil, where I, Scott Gillespie, an agronomist specializing in climate-smart agriculture, discuss scientifically proven practices that benefit both the planet and farmers&...

#RealisticRegenAg | Twenty-seven inches of precipitation is what is required to make cover crops successful. This was the conclusion of an article I came across from a post by Dr. Andrew McGuire a few months ago. I downloaded the journal article and read it. It makes so much sense to me. Join me as I discuss this important new rule of thumb for cover crops. Welcome to Plants Dig Soil, where I, Sco...

#RealisticRegenAg | Usually, I try to avoid cow patties when walking in a pasture. This time, however, the rancher was stopped in his tracks because there were holes in the top, and he thought he saw something scurry back into it. If we had the new book "Cow Patty Critters," we may have been able to figure out exactly what was going on. Stay tuned for the rest of this episode as I review...

#RealisticRegenAg | There are times when it's best to scale back. The community that I was trying to get going didn’t take off, so we decided to shut it down. I tried one many years ago and the same thing happened. Although there we interest, there seemed to be hesitation in commitment. Welcome to Plants Dig Soil. My name is Scott Gillespie and I work with farmers and agribusiness on climate s...

(Sorry – the camera wasn’t working so I just recorded with my laptop facing a sound barrier!) #RealisticRegenAg | It’s always bugged me that regenerative is portrayed as a win-win-win system for the farmer, the soil, and the planet. Farmers that don’t do it can be seen as farming in a backwards way. However, if it were so simple and did so much, I’m sure they’d be doing it already. The overall the...

#RealisticRegenAg | I hadn’t really thought of AI Assisted Agronomy until Farmers Business Network came out with Norm. ChatGPT was trained on their own very well structured data and was able to answer common questions farmers had. I think this is an exciting development. I’ll tell you why, coming right up. Welcome to Plants Dig Soil. My name is Scott Gillespie and I work with farmers and agribusin...

#RealisticRegenAg | With the current plans to expand irrigation capacity in Southern Alberta I’m highlighting a book I read a year and half ago that covers what happened the last time a major project happened in Alberta. Join me as I discuss “Who Speaks For The River?” by Robert Girvan. Welcome to Plants Dig Soil. The podcast that supports my consulting business of the same name. I focus on #Reali...

When I decided to do a four week cycle of episodes I knew there would be one extra week every three months. Welcome to the gap week where I talk about the format change, addressing audio quality, and ask for your feedback on how things are going. Welcome to Plants Dig Soil. The podcast that supports my consulting business of the same name. I focus on #RealisticRegenAg. This means it has to be prov...

The latest funding to be announced is called S-CAP, which is the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership. Every province has its own deal and Alberta has finally announced what they are doing. I will cover this new funding, how it is relevant to your farm, what you might be able to get from it, and how I can help you receive this funding. Welcome to Plants Dig Soil. The podcast that supports...

#RealisticRegenAg | From early research on cover crops in dryland situations, to a cold turkey approach to going regenerative, to a farm that was regenerative organic all of them seemed to thrive on early success, but then things changed. Those themes came up in the news I looked at this month. I’ll cover those stories plus other ones in this episode. *** Oops. I forgot to change the title slide (...

#RealisticRegenAg | Regenerative insect management takes a mindset shift. There's no silver bullets for it, but there's things that you can do to set yourself up for less pressed pressure. I'll be covering this in this upcoming episode. Join the Realistic Regen Ag Community: https://link-app.agvisorpro.com/community-private-LdYiDvbkEWtmIH0GzSQ1 Profitable From the Start: Cover Crops fo...

#RealisticRegenAg | I fell in love with the Prairies as soon as I moved out here nearly two decades ago. When I saw this book, it immediately called to me. She goes back to geological history to set the stage for who lives here now and what the future of this area is. Join me in this episode where I review this book and hopefully encourage you to read it yourself. Publishers site https://greystone...

#RealisticRegenAg | Have you ever thought you'd like to have me as a resource, but you don't need the full consulting package? I’d like to introduce you to the Realistic Regen Ag Community. I’ll be covering this in my newsletter update for April of 2023. Join the Realistic Regen Ag Community: https://link-app.agvisorpro.com/community-private-LdYiDvbkEWtmIH0GzSQ1 Profitable From the Start:...

#RealisticRegenAg | The first plant to see the light of day is the one that gets ahead. This has huge implications in crop establishment and in using cover crops to suppress weeds. I'll be covering an article about this and many other things in regenerative ag news in this episode Newsletter signup: https://mailchi.mp/plantsdigsoil/newsletter   My service offerings: https://www.plantsdigsoil.c...

#RealisticRegenAg | Disease suppressive soils are ones that would fend off diseases before they even had a chance to get into your crop plants. I think this is a worthwhile goal to work towards in regenerative agriculture. But of course, it's not going to be simple and it's not going to cover everything. In this episode, I'm going to go over all of the different ideas that I have seen come up over...

#RealisticRegenAg | Braiding Sweetgrass is a book that covers two very different views of the world: The European way and the Indigenous way. Robin Wall Kimmerer applies her scientific understanding of the world with the indigenous teachings to bring them both together in a very interesting way in this book. Stay tuned to this episode where I'll cover some of the things that I have learned from th...

#RealisticRegenAg | There is money out there for the taking for things like seeding cover crops, the cost of the cover crop seed, soil mapping, soil testing, splitting your nitrogen applications using inhibitors and even for hauling and applying manure, compost and digestate. You can also get money to establish perennials or top up legumes in your perennial stands. And if you want to get into rota...

#RealisticRegenAg | The chickpea-flax intercrop has been something studied and used in Saskatchewan for quite a while now. This past season of variable weather has really tested it and it seems that it has done much better than the monocrop. I will be discussing this more in the rest of this episode and talking about other regenerative agriculture news that I found interesting Newsletter signup: h...

#RealisticRegenAg | Manure is not regenerative. Now, I admit that is a little bit of a click-baity title, but I'm gonna go into this because it's seems to be misunderstood that manure or for that matter compost and digestate are these free fertilizer sources that farmers are just not using, but they're not as simple as it seems to be portrayed them. Listen further and episode for more details. New...

#RealisticRegenAg | What happens when the person that you look up to for inspiration turns out to not really be the person you thought they were? Well, this is a very interesting book, Why Fish Don't Exist, and I'm going to talk about my takeaways from it in this upcoming episode. Newsletter signup: https://mailchi.mp/plantsdigsoil/newsletter My service offerings: https://www.plantsdigsoil.com/pri...

#RealisticRegenAg | Can tillage and carbon be compatible? That's a question that I'm going to be addressing in an upcoming workshop. If you're in Alberta, you'll be able to come to this in person event in central and southern Alberta. Stay tuned and I'll tell you about this and all the other updates in my monthly newsletter. Newsletter signup: https://mailchi.mp/plantsdigsoil/newsletter My service...

#RealisticRegenAg | Could the level of organic matter in your soil be tied to your insurance premiums in the future? This is just one of the many articles that I came across this month as I was looking for regenerative agriculture news. Stay tuned for this and many more. Newsletter signup: https://mailchi.mp/plantsdigsoil/newsletter My service offerings: https://www.plantsdigsoil.com/pricing/ Emai...