ECOLOGICAL FARMING

Farmscaping involves planting perennials including tree crops and vines, hedgerows, riparian buffer zones, vegetative filter strips, tailwater ponds, and insectary plantings on-farm. These plantings can help increase biodiversity of flora and fauna while offering additional benefits to the farm and providing ecosystem services to the surrounding environment.

VISIT OUR HEDGEROW & FARMSCAPING PAGE >>>

A cover crop is a “non-economic” crop planted to benefit the soil and subsequently the cash crop by providing a host of benefits to the farm and ecosystem. Cover crops improve soil health, reduce erosion, runoff, and compaction, supply nutrients for the cash crop, suppress weeds and provide habitat for beneficial insects and pollinators. They can be planted in both annual and perennial cropping systems–as part of a row crop rotation, or between perennial crops like nut trees or vineyards. In California, cover crops are most commonly grown over the winter months, and commonly include legumes, grasses and brassicas.

VISIT OUR COVER CROPS PAGE >>>

Crops and livestock have historically been integrated in farming systems. While a trend towards specialization of single crops over the past century has made it rare, more and more farmers are rediscovering the benefits of this diversification. By integrating livestock into cropping systems, the whole farm nutrient balance of imports and exports—fertility in, yields out—becomes more even. Integrating livestock can replace certain labor operations such as mowing, provide enhanced carbon and nitrogen cycling, build organic matter, help with disease suppression and amplify the benefits of cover crops. There are many different types of crop livestock integrated systems–sheep in vineyards, pasture poultry rotations after row crop harvest, cattle in olive orchards–and they all (when managed well) result in healthier crops and livestock.

VISIT OUR INTEGRATED CROP / LIVESTOCK PAGE >>>

Biointensive No-till integrates a number of climate smart practices, including minimizing soil disturbance. While traditional tillage is effective for weed control and loosening compacted soil, it breaks up the soil’s natural structure and exposes the most nutrient-rich layer of the soil to oxygen, resulting in the loss of nutrients and carbon. In biointensive no-till systems, minimal disturbance combined with additions of organic material to the soil (such as compost, cover crops or crop residues) results in a healthy soil ecosystem of microorganisms (or microbes) and macrofauna that enhances nutrient cycling, carbon storage, resilience to drought and a host of other benefits to the farm and ecosystem.

VISIT OUR BIOINTENSIVE NO-TILL PAGE >>>

Compost can offer a major boon to soil health by supercharging soil biology while improving soil structure and providing crops with essential nutrients that are steadily made available. As soil structure improves, added benefits like improved water retention, less runoff, and better tilth are seen in many of our soils here in California. By recycling materials and the energy stored in them, compost helps to close energy loops for more sustainable production, and at the same time stores carbon in the ground. Many of our project partners have integrated compost into their farms as part of a suite of Climate Smart friendly practices that stack farm and ecosystem benefits.

VISIT OUR COMPOST PAGE >>>