Gregg Sanford is an assistant professor of soil carbon and cropping system ecology in the Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He’s also director of the Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial (WICST), which has yielded 34 years’ worth of invaluable soil and crop data for farmers and researchers. Those data and findings from other specialists in the “soil space” are revealing soil’s far-reaching influences.
A multi-disciplinary, diverse team like SHARE puts those vast influences into closer perspective, suggests Sanford in the following Q&A.
What are your primary objectives?
Sanford: I’m interested in how ecological intensification can improve multiple ecosystem services rather than myopically focusing on maximizing yield. I’m interested in optimizing production with other critically important goals such as carbon sequestration, water quality, soil health, climate resilience, and stability.
What do you want farmers/other stakeholders to know about your work?
Sanford: I am committed to exploring accessible and equitable solutions for producers to improve the environmental outcomes of their farming systems while remaining economically viable. I pursue this work through a combination of on-farm and on-station field research.
One unique research study that I run is the Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial (WICST). WICST is a long-term, large-scale farming systems experiment that has tracked the production, profit, and environmental impacts of common Wisconsin cropping systems for more than three decades. It’s kind of the “People’s Experiment” if you will, like the Wisconsin Idea. At WICST, we have 34 years’ of data and ongoing large-scale research to ask and answer some critical questions. I want farmers to realize that those resources and data are here. Making data available or engaging with producers to ask and answer pressing questions are very much things we’re interested in pursuing.
The Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial (WICST) near Arlington, Wisconsin, is a large-scale farming systems experiment that has tracked the production, profit, and environmental impacts of common Wisconsin cropping systems for more than three decades. Data from the trial are available to farmers.
What’s something new you’ve learned through your current SHARE-funded project or the SHARE collaboration itself?
Sanford: There are a lot of people doing a lot of great work in the state and the region on soil health and regenerative agriculture. One of the things that’s really clear is that diversified, integrated agricultural systems are key; if we want healthy soils, climate resilience, clean air and water, and thriving rural communities then we have to embrace and promote systems that are diverse, where crops and livestock are integrated, and where perennials occupy a large part of the landscape. That’s been a big recurring theme in many of the different angles we’ve taken to analyze and understand long-term cropping system data.
Plants and soils are inexorably linked by energy and matter in a constant cycle of co-creation, says Gregg Sanford.
Does the SHARE collaboration affect your approach to soil health research or effort? If so, in what way(s)?
Sanford: The SHARE effort and other multi-institutional, multi-investigator collaborations like this affect the approach in a sense they can make you much more aware of the players in the region or the field and the expertise they bring to the table. When we do research projects, we’re bringing our own experience to bear on something, and that’s great, but occasionally, it can result in siloing where we’re not hearing the bigger conversation.
One of the things that SHARE has helped me with is hearing that more extensive conversation – like knowing what others on campus and beyond are doing; what’s happening at the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center and the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute; or hearing SHARE members’ take on things. It makes for a more well-rounded and less siloed approach.
Why are you interested in soil health?
Sanford: I guess, to begin with, I’m interested in making the world a better place. My academic interests began with botany as an undergrad. I eventually came to realize that farming systems were a way for me to leverage my love of plants to help make a positive impact on people’s lives and the foods they’re consuming.
The way I think about soils and crops is that they’re not distinct pieces of our food system - they’re essential partners. We spend a lot of time thinking about what happens above ground, but really, what happens below ground has a huge impact on crop quality and productivity, water quality, and the climate. Soils are the great mediator between the biotic and abiotic realms. If we expect to make any impact in terms of climate resilience, water quality, food quality, or natural resources, we must take a holistic systems approach. Plants and soils are inexorably linked by energy and matter in a constant cycle of co-creation. That’s always been my angle.
Why are you interested in SHARE?
Sanford: I love the team and the idea that it’s a national, state, and non-profit collaborative. I like the fact that we – from very different disciplines – are engaged in the project and are committed to working together. I’m a natural scientist – soils and crops. But, for example, we have social scientists, farmers, and policy wonks all at the table talking together. Even though we all speak slightly different languages, SHARE is an excellent clearinghouse to really vet different ideas and approaches and understand our work in the broader context of sustainable and equitable food systems.
Crop-livestock integration is among the farming practices studied at the Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial.
What’s your favorite soil health practice (and why):
Sanford: I really love including perennials in agricultural systems, even relatively short-lived perennials (like grass “leys”). Perennials check off almost all the commonly promoted soil health practices (reducing tillage, increasing cover, and root biomass, etc.) and serve as a gateway for crops-livestock integration. It’s one thing to put a cover crop in a corn-soybean system and something entirely different to say we’re going to reimagine our farming system, bring crop and animal production back together, recouple our nutrient cycles, and rebuild our soils – the foundation of every healthy farming system.
Visit https://wicst.wisc.edu/ and Soil and Environmental Sciences – College of Agricultural & Life Sciences for more information.
Comments