John Kempf: Developing Regenerative Agriculture Ecosystems, part 1 | SNC 2018 Pre-conference

The Principles & Science of Developing Regenerative Agricultural Ecosystems, recorded at the 8th annual Soil and Nutrition Conference https://soilandnutrition.org/ ...Are you ready for a deep dive into the principles and the science of regenerative farming ecosystems? Here John Kempf shares his vast knowledge about how to regenerate soil health, dramatically improve crop yields and quality, decrease pest pressure and grow crops more resilient to climate extremes.

Essentially all soil and plant ecosystems are substantially degraded, to a point where we don’t immediately recognize how severely they are malfunctioning. We don’t have a frame of reference to know what “normal” actually looks like. It is common for most crops to produce only 15-25% of the yield they are genetically capable of. It is common for many plants to photosynthesize at only 15-25% of their capacity in a 24 hour photo-period.

In this workshop, John describes the principles and the science of regenerative farming ecosystems that harness much more of the energy coming into the system, and produce Olympic athlete level performance. We already have the knowledge and information needed to increase soil and crop performance by several levels of magnitude. We simply need to implement what is already known.

We can develop regenerative agriculture eco-systems in which soil health is quickly regenerated, crop yields and quality constantly improve, pest pressure becomes less of a challenge, and crops are much more resilient to climate extremes. When a truly regenerative eco-system is functioning well, the need for external inputs becomes less and less.

In this discussion John covers:
• The science of soil-plant synergy
• How to manage specific aspects of plant development and yield components. How to increase fruit or seed size, or how to increase the number of seed or fruit.
• How plants get energy from sources other than photosynthesis
• How to prioritize cultural management practices and product applications to produce the greatest ecosystem response.
• How to develop disease-suppressive soil by managing crop and cover crop rotations
• How to monitor a crops nutritional integrity through the growing season
• Why insects and diseases are attracted to crops with specific nutritional profiles, and how to prevent them

The material John presents in this video assumes a foundational understanding of managing soil. He describes how to achieve a much higher plateau of soil and plant performance. This workshop will provide an explanation of the science needed to grow 500 bushel corn, and 20-60% yield increases of many fruit and vegetable crops.