Similar to regenerative agriculture, SlurryForSoil is designed to optimise soil health and create a more productive and resilient farming system. By adding beneficial soil microbes to grasslands, making slurry easier and more accessible for the soil’s biome, improving grass yields and reducing the need for fertiliser, SlurryForSoil can be a useful tool within regenerative dairy production systems.
SlurryForSoil and its synergy with regenerative agriculture
Regenerative agriculture is underpinned by five principles, all of which nurture the soil’s microbiology:
1) Don’t disturb the soil – tillage destroys the structure of soil and the habitat of the organisms living within it. Whether it is breaking fungi’s intricate web of hyphae or disturbing worm burrows, tillage has a detrimental effect on soil’s natural processes.
2) Keep the soil surface covered – a layer of organic matter protects the soil’s surface from rain, sun and frost. Mulches, cover crops and cash crops all help to feed the organisms that live beneath, keeping them functioning.
3) Keep living roots in the soil – not only helps to hold soils together but is essential for feeding the soil’s biology.
4) Grow a diverse range of crops – increases resilience and maintains species that are beneficial in other parts of the rotation.
5) Bring grazing animals back to the land – to fertilise the soil and provide a rest from crop production.
SlurryForSoil has a similar aim. It encourages a rich and healthy soil biome by improving the slurry’s profile and adding a diverse range beneficial microbes to soils. The results are improved grass growth and a lower need for synthetic fertiliser.
How SlurryForSoil improves slurry as a food for soil microbes
Fundamentally, slurry has all the ingredients needed to foster a rich and healthy soil biome, however, left untreated, slurry becomes dominated by anaerobic microbes. Essentially it rots and many of the valuable nutrients are lost.
Applying slurry in too high a concentration is detrimental to grassland productivity due to its high biological oxygen demand (BOD). At 10,000 to 20,000 mg O2/litre – it consumes a lot of oxygen in its decomposition. In comparison, raw domestic sewage has a BOD of 300-400 mg O2/litre. Heavy slurry applications can effectively suffocate the soil and its biology.
SlurryForSoil is a blend of 18 different bacteria and fungi that are facultative anaerobes. Naturally, they prefer aerobic conditions (like soils) but the ones we’ve chosen to include in SlurryForSoil can survive and reproduce in anaerobic conditions.
When applied, SlurryForSoil’s microbes colonise slurry, breaking it down and capturing nutrients in a way that is more akin to how a cow pat decomposes in a field.
When applied to the field, slurry treated with SlurryForSoil contains a wealth and diversity of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and fungi as well as organic matter that’s already started to be broken down into simpler compounds that are easier for the soil’s biome to utilise.
SlurryForSoil enhances crop nutrition
Slurry’s nutrients are held in a variety of formats:
– trapped within the organic matter that’s not yet been broken down
– nutrients which have been released by the microorganisms but not yet consumed by them
– contained within the cells of the fungi and bacteria.
These will be accessed by plants at different speeds, giving grassland prolonged access to nutrients (and reducing the likelihood of leaching).
In addition, the microbes in SlurryForSoil are proven to mobilise nutrients and transport them with soils, enhancing plants’ ability to access nutrients in the longer term.
SlurryforSoil reduces need for artificial fertiliser
On-farm trials have shown that using SlurryForSoil enables farmers to reduce synthetic fertiliser use (while maintaining or increasing grass yields).
In nature, plants form symbiotic relationships with soil microbes. Their roots excrete carbon-rich exudates in order to recruit microbes that can access nutrients and water that the plants are less able to reach.
Different microbes have different abilities to scavenge nutrients and plants are able to alter the composition of their exudates and attract specific microbes depending on their needs.
However, when synthetic fertiliser is applied, plants are less inclined to produce exudates. Over time, plants become reliant on farmers to fulfil their nutritional requirements.
Enhancing the nutritional value of slurry by treating it with SlurryForSoil has enabled many dairy farmers to reduce their use of fertiliser. By adding beneficial microbes to slurry and subsequently to soils, SlurryForSoil enriches rather than diminishes the soil biome, its function and its productivity.
Regenerative agriculture - additional benefits of SlurryForSoil in
The microbes in SlurryForSoil have been chosen for their unique abilities, some of which go beyond the transformation of slurry, for example:
– 17 have been shown to be involved in biological control of plant pathogens and diseases
– 13 have been shown to be involved in biological control of nematodes, molluscs and insect pests
– 13 improve plants’ drought, cold and heat stress tolerance
– All 18 are bioremedial (they can remove toxins from soils)
What SlurryForSoil brings to regenerative agriculture - dairy
SlurryForSoil can be a useful tool in regenerative dairy production. Not only does it improve the nutrient profile of slurry, SlurryForSoil, improves the soil’s biome and functioning, allowing users to reduce synthetic fertiliser use while increasing grass quality and yields.
To read more about the science behind SlurryForSoil, click here.
If you’d like to find out more about using SlurryForSoil as part of a regenerative farming system, we will be exhibiting at Groundswell.
It’s approved for use in organic dairy systems by both the OF&G and the Soil Association.