Compost on Sacramento Valley Rangelands: Boosting ranch productivity, soil health and carbon storage

As part of the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s (CDFA) Healthy Soils Program, this project demonstrates compost application on a cattle ranch in Winters, CA. Over the course of 3 years of compost applications, we monitor soil organic carbon and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as overall improvements to soil health and forage production. In collaboration with the landowner and range management experts, the project team seeks to develop improved cost-benefit data for regional/statewide adoption and incentives programming. As part of this project, YCRCD leads an outreach program with support from regional associations to share project information with the ranching and conservation community via on-site compost demonstrations and field trial tours.

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Background

In 2017 Scott Stone of Yolo Land & Cattle Co. partnered with Yolo County Resource Conservation District and Carbon Cycle Institute to complete the first Carbon Farm Plan (CFP) in Yolo County. Carbon Farm Planning is a whole farm approach to optimizing carbon capture on working landscapes, allowing for the quantification of GHG benefits while developing a framework to use carbon as an organizing principle to manage land.

Click here to read a California Rangeland Trust article about Yolo Land & Cattle Co. and “Carbon Cowboy’s Healing the Earth”.

Scott and Karen Stone, Yolo Land & Cattle Co. Photo credit: CA Rangeland Trust

From the CFP, project partners identified areas on Yolo Land & Cattle Co. that would be suitable for compost application for a demonstration project as part of CDFA’s Healthy Soils Program with the goal to monitor soil organic carbon and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in order to test existing research findings that application of green waste compost to rangelands results in improvements to soil health and forage production.

Project Design

Compost will be applied to 50 acres of grazed annual grassland on the property. 5 dry tons of compost will be applied across all 50 acres for three consecutive years with the first application in 2018. The total combined application amounts to 1/4 inch of compost applied to 50 acres total.

Below is a map showing three paired control and treatment sites throughout Yolo Land & Cattle Co. Red polygons are areas treated with compost (50 acres in total). Green polygons are control areas.

Compost Application Sites at Yolo Land & Cattle Co.

Benefits are evaluated by three primary metrics: 1) soil carbon flux, as measured by net ecosystem exchange of CO2 (NEEC), 2) soil organic conent in the top 40cm of soil (SOC) and 3) forage production, as measured by above-ground plant biomass at peak production. Additional measurements include soil dynamic properties (bulk density and water infiltration rate) and plant community composition (species, functional group and forage diversity).

Below is a map showing field sampling design:

Sampling Design for Monitoring Compost Application on Yolo Land & Cattle Co.

Project activities complete to date:

• 2018 Fall Compost Application (50 acres) and on-farm demonstration workshop
• 2019 Spring Cattle, Carbon and Compost Workshop- on-farm demonstration of compost and discussion with Jeffrey Creque of Carbon Cycle Institute.
• 2019 Spring Prescribed Burn Workshop- on farm discussion of reducing fuel loads for improved soil health and catastrophic fire management with Phil Dye.
• 2019 Fall Compost Application (50 acres) and on-farm demonstration workshop where Corey Shake and Chris Potter discussed early monitoring results.
• Ongoing seasonal data monitoring by Point Blue Conservation Science and CASA Systems 2100.

Workshop Material:

On July 24th, 2019 YCRCD hosted a workshop at Yolo Land & Cattle Co. with Phil Dye, a qualified burn boss of Prometheus Fire Consulting, LLC to discuss prescribed fire and utilizing it in landscapes to promote fuel reduction and healthy soils. Follow this link for powerpoint slides from the workshop, a YouTube video of the presentation and more wildfire resources.

Project Partners:

Yolo Land & Cattle Co.

Yolo County Resource Conservation District

CASA Systems 2100, LLC

Point Blue Conservation Science

Westside Spreading, LLC

California Cattlemen’s Association

Carbon Cycle Institute

California Climate and Agriculture Network

California Rangeland Conservation Coalition

Natural Resources Conservation Service

For more information about CDFA’s Healthy Soils Program click here

If you are interested in carbon farm planning or more information on this project please contact Joanne Heraty, YCRCD Project manager at heraty@yolorcd.org or (530) 661-1688×22

Compost turning on Yolo Land & Cattle Co.