Just created a video on the importance of #CoverCrops. 🌱
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It's a sustainable practice and farmers have been doing it for ages. However, I was recently shocked to witness the growing trend of #StubbleBurning instead of leaving crop residues as mulch to enrich and protect the soil.
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"What goes into the soil, stays in the soil." The same applies to #Plastic and #Pesticides. So why not choose practices that help the soil regenerate, retain its health, and remain productive for generations to come?

On the left, we have a field of grass. It’s a prolific crop. It grows in abundance without fertiliser and does not need protecting from pests. It’s the natural food source of ruminant animals: cows, sheep, goats.

When they graze on pasture, they stimulate the growth of more grass. The process is amazing. What we see on the surface is nothing compared to what is buried underneath: complex root systems intertwining deep underground, storing carbon and creating rich soil for the future.

Ruminant animals do not deplete when managed properly. They create abundance. Cows eating grass encourages more grass to grow, but also supports more flies, more birds, and more of the things that feed on birds. It is a living system.

So how did we end up believing this is the environmental disaster?

Now compare that to industrial arable farming.

First, rich prairie sod is tilled and “enriched” with fertilisers made using fossil fuels. That’s a double hit to nature: we release the carbon trapped in the soil, then use methane-derived fertilisers to force crops to grow. Over time, this depletes the soil. Instead of building more underground, shallow crop roots help turn the resource into dust.

Another thing people may not know about mined methane is that it also produces ethane. You cannot mine one without the other. Ethane is used to make plastic. This is one reason plastic recycling makes so little commercial sense: virgin plastic is practically free at source because ethane is treated almost like waste.

Then comes the next environmental crime that people have been led to believe is a solution: gas nature to save the crop. Don’t let insects eat their preferred food source, even though we planted it all together in one giant buffet.

What is your solution?

Mine is simple: let cows eat grass and let humans eat cows.

The way I see it, pasture-based livestock is not the enemy of the environment. It may be one of the only realistic ways to restore soil, rebuild ecosystems, and reduce fossil fuel inputs in farming.

How did they convince so many people that destroying nature is good for the planet?

When starting a transition of a land to regenerative practices, the biggest hurdle hasn't been the management changes, but the isolation. Almost everyone in the local area farms conventionally. Discussing multi-species cover crops or reducing inputs, you mostly get polite nods or outright skepticism.

For those who have been doing this for a while, how did you manage such peer pressure?

Hi everyone,

Last year I bought a piece of land in Lower Silesia, Poland. About half a hectare of it had been used as an intensive monoculture for decades—most recently, it was a conventional rapeseed field. After the harvest, I decided to just fence it off and leave it completely alone to see what would happen.

One year in, and the results are already blowing me away.

As you can see in the attached photo:

• Left side: My plot after exactly one season of doing absolutely nothing.
• Right side: My neighbor’s active, conventional monoculture field.
• Far Left: Another monoculture

Around 30–40% of my plot has already been taken over by a beautifully diverse mix of native plants—I've spotted bedstraw, St. John's wort, lady's mantle, brambles, thistles, chamomile, goosefoot, and a ton of different grasses. The rest is still mostly volunteer rapeseed and crumbs of cereals left over from the previous crop.

The Dilemma: Legal Constraints vs. Rewilding

My ultimate, long-term plan has feelings of full rewilding and afforestation—essentially, planting native trees and getting completely out of Nature's way. However, I’ve hit a bureaucratic wall: Polish law requires me to maintain official "agricultural use" for at least 4 more years before I can legally change the land designation and plant a proper forest.

I am trying to figure out a transitional strategy for these 4 years that satisfies the legal paperwork without destroying or resetting the incredible biodiversity that is already waking up.

The Ideas So Far:

• Rotational Horse Grazing: A local farmer already grazes his horses on a few private plots in our village. Letting them onto my land would easily satisfy the "agricultural use" requirement and would likely knock back the volunteer rapeseed. My concern: Will horse grazing at this fragile, early stage help the native succession along, or will the heavy hooves just flatten and destroy it?
• Starting a Permaculture Forest Garden / Food Forest: I could start establishing a woody structure early. A food forest or agroforestry setup legally counts as agricultural production here, which ticks the bureaucratic boxes while giving me a massive head start on the canopy and shrub layers.

What am I missing?

Has anyone faced similar legal hurdles while trying to rewild old agricultural land? If you were in my shoes, how would you navigate these next 4 years to maximize biodiversity and prep the site for its ultimate wild future?

Looking forward to your insights and advice!

https://preview.redd.it/fht6wvu2929h1.jpg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9a1313a032e84a6e2199c238207d03de1bfdec9

...because everyone else is.

I am starting a study on my field to gain a better understanding of SOM and how management practices impact it. My field is about 2 acres, and will eventually be used for biointensive vegetable production, think Elliott Coleman and JM Fortier.

I am looking to build something of a 4 dimensional map of the SOM. Sampling not only the vegetable beds, but also the hedgerows I will be installing and even the pathways/walkways, along with the outer perimeter to use as my control. Each sample will be further split into 3 sub-samples, 0-4, 4-8 and 8-12 inch depths. I am looking at roughly 20-30 samples per year, so 60-90 LOI tests per year. The field will be split up into a grid, not by area, but by use. I am also planing to do thermogravimetric analysis as well so I can dig in a bit more as to what soil I am actually dealing with. The samples will be collected throughout every season, which could also help see the natural seasonality of the soil life. This will also include microscopy of the soil, I really want to see everything that is happening. This year is mostly dedicated to developing my lab skills and data recoding methods. So hopefully next year I can start collect usable data.

Any thoughts? Advice? Suggestions? Critiques? Those would be very helpful now before I dive into this.