Even flow

A decade ago, Charlotte and Roy Ekland purchased their first ranch in the rolling hills west of Paskenta in Tehama County. The landscape was degraded, run down by extensive grazing. Perennial grasses and shrubs had all but disappeared. So had the birds that depended on a diversity of plant life in the region. The pastures, beautiful as they were, were unsustainable.

Rejuvenation was in order, and the Eklands set into motion plans to restore the landscape using regenerative agriculture practices.

On Thursday (Dec. 5), a speaker series on climate-related issues at the Gateway Science Museum concluded with an exploration of the field of regenerative agriculture. It’s a form of agriculture described as farming and grazing practices that rebuild soil organic matter, restore degraded soils, improve water efficiency and result in carbon sequestration—thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Farmers and ranchers are feeling the effects of volatile weather patterns—droughts and floods—because of climate change, while also contributing to carbon dioxide levels that have accumulated in the atmosphere over the last several decades, said Cynthia Daley, director of the Center of Regenerative Agriculture and Resilient Systems at Chico State.

Not all legacy CO2 levels have been generated by agriculture practices, “but we still have this situation that we need to deal with,” Daley said. “The planet is warming up. We know that to be true. It’s creating a lot of chaos with respect to weather, weather patterns. And no one realizes that more so than those of us in agriculture.”

One key component of regenerative agriculture: keeping living plant roots in the soil year-round.

Doing so supports soil biology, Daley said, which can be facilitated by planting cover crops, implementing crop rotations and reducing soil tilling or ceasing the practice altogether. Plant diversity is important, she added. A diverse soil biology means more carbon can be sequestered. The goal is to keep soil insulated and cool and mitigate any damage that can be done to underlying fungi, which deliver nutrients to a plant.

“Keep the soil covered,” she said. “At no point [in] time should we leave our skin naked and bare.”

Reducing the amount of CO2 released by agriculture practices will take time, Daley said, but by focusing energy and resources on solutions, progress can be made toward creating a net carbon flux—or an even flow of carbon moving about agricultural ecosystems.

“That’s why we’re using the term regenerative,” she said. “We don’t want to sustain a bad or degraded system. It’s time that we actually regenerate our agricultural landscapes for the longevity of the human race.”

Charlotte Ekland, co-owner of C&R Ranch, which is located about 17 miles west of Corning, says she is putting regenerative agriculture concepts into practice.

Speaking at the event Thursday, which was hosted by the League of Women Voters of Butte County and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Ekland said her land isn’t appropriate for row crops, orchards or grain production. But it’s beautiful, she said, and it’s used for grazing and has become home to a large ecological project she and her husband, Roy, facilitated.

Ekland said extensive grazing had degraded the land, ridding the pasture of native perennial grasses that can survive for several years at a time and whose roots can dive 20 feet underground. Large predators that kept cattle bunched in herds had dwindled to primarily coyotes—not enough of a threat to keep cattle grouped up. Diverse species of shrubs and trees had disappeared, leaving the woodland unhealthy.

So how to restore the land? One tool, Ekland said, is the regenerative practice of managed grazing. Over the past 10 years the couple have divided their property into paddocks, thereby encouraging herd formations in contrast to letting the animals freely spread throughout the landscape. Once one paddock is cleared, the animals are moved to another one, and restoration work—including the planting of cover crops—begins behind them.

Preliminary results, she said, are encouraging. Soil cover has improved, keeping roots alive and protecting the land from sun exposure and rain. The practices also have supported biodiversity, and Ekland says they are bringing native California grasses back to the landscape as the soils maintain better holding capacities for water. That diversity also supports carbon sequestration.

“It’s slow,” she said, noting that the couple have many more annual grasses than perennial ones. “But it is happening.”

Roy echoed her sentiments, as well as Daley’s. The hallmark of a viable habitat, he said, is the collection of multiple species of grasses, flowering plants and broad-leaves. Roy added that the couple have undertaken an extra step to accelerate the diversification process.

Around 2012, the Eklands started a habitat restoration project focused on riparian areas, reintroducing to degraded lands multiple species of plants. The effort, he said, coincided with a years-long period of drought, but the results have nonetheless been encouraging.

Native grasses have kept their growth, the planting of wildflowers has been both aesthetically pleasing and good for pollinators, and the plants have fed the soil and underlying fungi.

“Multiple species … [give] us that range of plant which feed the soil, fungi and support a healthy and dynamic foundation for carbon sequestration,” he said.