Chapter Two
Soil Fertility Considerations
A rich heritage of grain culture exists in our
region. There are a few basic considerations and
requirements when you’re thinking of growing
your own grains. Land, machinery, and knowledge
are all essential. Couple these ingredients with
some good advice, willpower, and beginner’s luck,
and you are on your way to being a grain grower.
First, it’s important to consider scale; grain, by its
very nature, is bulky and lower in value than other
more specialized crops, which gives rise to mass
production and large scales of operation. Today’s
average producer of commodity grain crops farms
a thousand acres or more to make the same living
that his grandparents made on two hundred acres
two generations ago. So-called mixed farming,
where farm-raised grains were fed to cattle, hogs,
and chickens, has been replaced by the cash grain
system, and the rural fabric of much of our country
has unraveled as small-scale animal agriculture has
given way to gigantic concentrated animal feeding
operations (CAFOs). In this industrial system,
grain is harvested by massive combines and trucked
away to nearby grain elevators owned by multina-
tional corporations; crop diversity is an unwanted
burden to an industrial agricultural system that is
fueled primarily by corn and soybeans. Ninety-five
percent of all soybeans and 85 percent of all corn
crops are genetically modified, and seed sovereignty
is increasingly in question as fewer and fewer large
corporations come to dominate the trade. This sad
state of affairs certainly poses challenges to anyone
21
who cares about the environment or is trying to live
in harmony with nature. It does, however, present
us with a unique opportunity to do something
interesting and different in our own particular
bioregion. We are blessed in the Northeast for so
many reasons. For one, we lack the huge expanses of
land that make industrial agriculture so well suited
to the Midwest and the plains states. Plus, a very
willing and open-minded population inhabits our
towns and cities, and locally produced foodstuffs
are now more popular than ever. Indeed, small-scale
agriculture has been in decline and needs a boost,
and people are hungry for meaning as well as food.
Organic grain production provides opportunities
for both farmers and gardeners to expand their
repertoires; dairy farmers can very easily add oats,
barley, and wheat to their forage crop rotations, and
small plots of any sort of grain can be intensively
grown in the home garden.
Information about organic grain growing was
pretty sparse when I first became interested in
growing my own cereals in the early 1970s. Having
come to farming as a romantic with a background
in the history of agriculture, old farming textbooks
were my first source of information about soils
and crops, and I was able to purchase many old
agronomy texts from the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries at used-book stores. Studying
farming practices from this particular time period
provided me with good sound advice because agri-
culture was still being practiced in harmony with
 The Organic Grain Grower
nature; chemical fertilizers (or manures as they
called them) were relatively few, and toxic inputs
were not yet developed. By the first decade of the
twentieth century, mankind had probably reached
the pinnacle of knowledge in crop science that was
holistic and friendly to the natural environment.
MacMillan and Orange Judd Company, both of
New York, were the two primary publishers of agri-
cultural texts at the time, and Liberty Hyde Bailey,
dean of agriculture at Cornell, was the editor of the
Rural Science series, Cyclopedia of Agriculture (four vol-
umes), and Cyclopedia of Horticulture (six volumes),
all published by MacMillan. My favorite volume
from the time is The Cereals in America published in
1904 by Thomas F. Hunt, a professor of agronomy
at Cornell. The book contained everything I needed
to know as a novice intent on growing my first
crops of grain, and I would recommend this book
and all others like it to anyone searching for good
solid information on any agronomic subject. Oc-
casionally, you might stumble across one of these
volumes in a used-book store, and the libraries
of most land grant colleges and universities still
have many of these old agronomy books on their
shelves—simply go to the 630 section in the
Dewey decimal system and you will find all of these
old books in one place. Certainly, farming in the
early twentieth century has a lot to offer us now,
one-hundred-plus years later.
A Brief History of
Chemical Fertilizers
In its quest for high levels of production, modern
agriculture has forgotten and ignored many of the
tenets of basic farming knowledge contained in the
agronomy textbooks of yesteryear, as quantity is
much more important than quality in these modern
times. Ever since German chemist Justus von Liebig
discovered chemical nitrogen and its importance as a
plant food, soluble minerals have supplanted humus
and organic matter as the basis of fertility in agri-
22
culture. According to von Liebig, plants need nitro-
gen in the form of ammonia to grow and synthesize
protein, but where the nitrogen comes from is of no
consequence according to the von Liebig view. This
discovery has led to amazing gains in crop yields
over the past 150 years. In the mid-nineteenth
century, bat guano imported from South America
was the first artificial “manure” applied to crops at
the time, and nitrate of soda (Chilean nitrate) was
the next big discovery, a salt-like substance mined
in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile where the
rain never falls; it contains 16 percent nitrogen.
The history and development of high-yield-
production agriculture is directly coupled with the
introduction of stronger and stronger sources of
mineral nitrogen—Chilean nitrate was followed
by ammonium nitrate, also used in the munitions
industry. Modern fertilizer production reached its
zenith with the invention of the Haber-Bosch pro-
cess in which urea could be made with natural gas
and anhydrous ammonia for direct soil injection.
This process—first used during World War II to
harden the ground for airstrips in the jungles of the
South Pacific—paved the way for higher crop yields
in the 1960s. (Now a standard source of nitrogen
for corn, it has also succeeded in hardening the
soils of farm fields throughout the Corn Belt of the
American Midwest.) In addition, nitrate and salt
fertilizer use has increased steadily since the end of
World War II, and excess ammonium nitrate from
the munitions industry was channeled into fertil-
izer production, which paved the way for the Green
Revolution that followed in the 1950s and 1960s.
American agriculture has become totally reliant on
the fertilizer bag, but the unforeseen consequence of
this over-reliance on salt-based fertilizers has been
pollution and environmental degradation. Nitrates
have seeped into the water table, making drinking
water unsafe throughout much of farm country.
Perhaps the largest and best-known example of this
pollution problem is the ever-growing dead zone
in the Gulf of Mexico where the Mississippi River
 Soil Fertility Considerations
empties the effluent of America’s productive heart-
land into the sea. We have learned that the increased
productivity of modern agriculture has come with a
price tag.
The forgotten element in this quest for higher
crop yields and so-called increased productivity
has been carbon. Justus von Liebig was a chemist,
not a soil microbiologist; little did he realize that
soil-applied mineral nitrates require the oxidizing
action of soil bacteria and presence of carbon to
make them available to plant roots. For every one
part of nitrate, twenty parts of carbon are needed to
make this process happen, and soil carbon is literally
burned up and released to the atmosphere as carbon
dioxide during the nitrification process. Sadly, the
application of soluble nitrate fertilizers has reduced
organic matter levels in American soils from a high
of 5 to 7 percent one hundred years ago to a cur-
rent average of less than 1 percent nationwide. But
humus and organic matter ensure resiliency in our
soils, and for every 1 percent increase in organic
matter level a soil will retain an additional 160,000
pounds of water per acre. High-humus soils are
like the lungs of the earth, allowing soils to retain
moisture in times of drought and wick away excess
moisture during rainy wet spells. Good aggregation
or soil structure goes hand in hand with high levels
of humus. A soil with good aggregation proper-
ties will very easily crumble into many small little
pieces in your hands. This good “crumb structure”
ensures that there will be plenty of pore spaces for
air and water storage, and a healthy high-humus
soil will have the ability to hold on to more min-
eral nutrients and be able to resist the forces of
wind and water erosion. The carbon cycle is the
foundation of organic agriculture, and it is entirely
possible to achieve the same yields as the chemical
guys in an organic system. We get there by working
with nature to foster a soil that is alive and teeming
with microbial life. To grow nutrient-dense, high-
quality crops, we must have an abundant supply of
carbon—nature’s building block.
23
The Importance of
Soil Fertility
Any exploration of soil fertility will take us into three
interdependent and equally important realms—the
chemical, the physical, and the biological. The
chemical realm is an indication of what kinds of
minerals are present in a particular soil and in what
sort of concentration. This aspect of the whole
picture is probably the easiest to understand and
measure with a standard garden or farm soil test,
where levels of calcium, magnesium, phosphorous,
potassium, and nitrates are indicated in parts per
million or pounds per acre. With this information
and accompanying recommendations, decisions can
be made about how much and what types of soil
amendments to apply to a specific plot or field.
The physical realm refers to a soil’s actual physical
structure. What kind of texture does it have? Is it
clay, silt, sand, or gravel? Is it poorly or excessively
drained? Compaction could be a problem because
of low organic matter and poor aggregation. A
soil’s physical qualities are directly related to its
humus content and the cultural practices of its
human stewards. Good diverse crop rotations and
frequent applications of compost and manure will
preserve and enhance the physical structure of a
farm’s soil. The biological realm of soil fertility
is all about microbiology and the billions of little
organisms that inhabit our soils. Fungi, bacteria,
actinomycetes, nematodes, and algae all work in
conjunction with the soil’s humus and mineral
fractions to feed themselves and the resident plant
population. Mycorrhizal fungi colonize plant roots
to symbiotically consume plant sugars while they
break down soil minerals and make them available
to the root zone of the host plant. Soil microbiol-
ogy is the least understood aspect of soil science;
these little beasties make it all happen, and we only
vaguely understand their function. What we do
know is that microbial populations are more diverse
and effective in an environment high in humus and
 The Organic Grain Grower
carbon, and a holistic approach to soil fertility that
considers the interrelationships among chemical,
physical, and biological soil properties is a prereq-
uisite for success in an organic farming system.
Until relatively recently, soil mineral fertility was
only charted in terms of three elements—nitrogen,
phosphorous, and potassium. This “NPK” ap-
proach is still pretty much standard fare in today’s
world of conventional agriculture. Soil tests indi-
cate deficits in these three major elements. Fertility
requirements are determined as pounds to the acre
of added fertilizers, and the soil is treated like a
bank account to which deposits and withdrawals
are made. As an aspiring organic farmer thirty-five
years ago, I was confounded by the notion of how
was I going to get enough nitrogen, phosphorous,
and potassium for my crops from cow manure only;
I had visions in my head of walking around the
pasture picking up cow flops with a dung fork. It
didn’t seem practical—and this point was certainly
driven home to me by my local extension agent, who
really wanted me to use chemical fertilizer. Organic
Gardening magazine wasn’t much help. Several years
later, I discovered The Albrecht Papers published by
Acres USA, a collection of papers and articles
written by Dr. William A. Albrecht between 1918
and 1957. Albrecht was chairman of the Plant and
Soils Department at the University of Missouri for
over thirty years and a keen observer of nature. He
noticed that the very highest-quality wheat in terms
of protein was grown in an area several hundred
miles wide that stretched from the Panhandle of
Texas northward to the Dakotas, an area that cor-
responded directly to the tallgrass prairie that once
supported millions of bison. Dr. Albrecht theorized
that very high-quality foods could be produced in
this region because the soil fertility balance was very
close to perfect. With a one-to-one ratio between
rainfall and evaporation, soil minerals were neither
leached nor overconcentrated, but as you traveled
eastward from this imaginary line, rainfall steadily
increased and soil acidity climbed. A westward
24
journey from this line would take you into the very
arid West, where soils were more naturally alkaline
because evaporation exceeded rainfall. Simply put,
these high plains soils had a perfect fertility pro-
file and produced crops superior in nutrition and
feed value. Dr. Albrecht then analyzed the mineral
makeup of these soils. He found that negatively
charged minuscule clay soil particles (also called
colloids) had the ability to magnetically attract and
hold on to positively charged minerals called cat-
ions. These ideal soils were “saturated” with 60 to
75 percent calcium, 10 to 20 percent magnesium,
2 to 5 percent potassium, 0.5 to 5 percent sodium,
and 7 to 10 percent hydrogen. This concept of base
saturation was very new and unfamiliar to me in
1977, but it gave me the hope and inspiration that
I, too, could grow highly nutritious grain crops here
in the Northeast without dumping NPK fertilizers
on the land.
Managing Soil
Fertility Organically
Organic soil fertility management for grains or any
other crops begins with a holistic view of our total
environment. Where is our field or plot located? Is
it next to a river that floods often or on a cold windy
mountaintop? Does the soil drain well or does it
remain waterlogged for long periods of time? Good
drainage is essential; some crops can tolerate wet
feet more than others. For example, oats will survive
in a soggy soil for a little while, but barley will shut
down its growth habit in the presence of excess
soil moisture. Well-drained loams produce the best
grain crops. Clays, which have the highest density of
colloids or soil particles, have the highest potential
fertility because they have the most sites to attract
and bond to calcium, magnesium, and potassium
cations. The ability of a soil to magnetically attract
and hold on to mineral fertility is called cation ex-
change capacity or CEC. Clay soils have the highest
CEC levels; once charged up with minerals, they are
 Soil Fertility Considerations
hard to deplete. Sands, on the other hand, are com-
posed of much fewer particles that are larger in size
and much coarser in texture. For this reason, they
drain well, but do not hold on to minerals very well
at all. Silts are somewhere between sand and clay in
texture and CEC levels. A silt loam is probably the
most ideal soil there is for crop production, as silts
drain well but still have enough texture to hold on to
moisture and mineral fertility. A basic understand-
ing of the physical structure and the cation exchange
capacity of your soil will help you make decisions
on how to best manage the mineral fertility of your
future grain field. If your soil is quite sandy, you will
have to apply soil amendments and rock powders
like lime and rock phosphate more often in smaller
doses. Sandy soils, by their nature, simply cannot
hold on to large amounts of nutrients. Although it
may not drain as well, heavier clay can accept much
larger applications of mineral fertility. Knowing the
physical properties and drainage potential of your
soil is the first step in preparing to grow grain on
your future field or plot.
The Soil Test
Once you have determined the suitability of a
particular piece of earth for grain production,
it is time for a soil test. But not all soil tests are
created equal—we must remember that a soil test
is just an analysis of a very dynamic environment
at one moment in time. Begin by walking around
your field with a shovel or soil probe and getting
as many “plugs” as possible in the most representa-
tive manner possible. Avoid low-lying spots and
other areas that don’t seem characteristic of the
rest of the field, and lay out your acreage in a grid
fashion or zigzag your way through to obtain your
soil profiles. Collect and mix together all of your
plugs in a bucket to obtain a soil sample that you
would consider representative. Separate fields or
plots have different characteristics, so it’s better to
take three individual soil tests from three distinctly
25
different fields than it is to mix them together for
one composite sample. A general rule of thumb is
to take at least three or four soil plugs from each
acre. Once your sample has been collected and
mixed together, it is time to put it in the little
sample bag and send it off to the lab of your choice.
There are many private soil testing laboratories in
addition to services provided by state agricultural
universities, and soil tests will vary in the amount
and type of information provided. When the lab
receives your sample, the first thing they will do is
to make an extraction, where a specific amount of
soil—say, a tablespoon—is mixed with a prescribed
amount of distilled water. A very small amount of
an extraction reagent (a few drops) is added to this
soil solution and shaken in order to dissolve its
minerals and prepare it for further testing. Extrac-
tion reagents are always some sort of acid. Acids by
their nature release H+ hydrogen ions, and plant
roots do the same thing. The acidic nature of the
extraction reagent is basically mimicking the roots
of plants in dissolving minerals from solution. Soil
tests will also vary in relation to the strength of
the extraction agent. Mild extractions like acetic
acid will not dissolve as many minerals from the
soil solution as a stronger reagent like ammonium
acetate. Soil testing is a science unto itself and can
only be briefly discussed here. Most soil tests done
in the Northeast are medium-strength soil extrac-
tions like Morgan, Modified Morgan, and Mellich
1, and will provide you with a basic overview of the
reserve fertility in your soil. Home and farm test
kits like the LaMotte and Simplex outfits rely on
much weaker extracts and provide you with more of
a picture of what nutrients are available right here
and now. Testing your own soil for available mineral
fertility right on the farm is a fun and rewarding
experience—sometimes that little bird’s-eye view
of what is happening right here and now is a valu-
able asset when you are trying to fertilize and plant
a crop and don’t want to wait a week or two for
laboratory results from some far-off place.
 The Organic Grain Grower

Soil Report

Job Name: Butterwork Farms Date 2/13/2012

Company: Butterwork Farms Submitted By ___

Sample Location A C&C Field 1N NCAE

Sample ID 1
Lab Number 1 2 3 4 5
Sample Depth in inches 6 6 6 6 6
Total Exchange Capacity (M.E.) 14.39 13.24 11.67 10.71 13.79
pH of Soil Sample 6.40 6.40 6.30 6.20 5.50
Organic Matter, Percent 7.68 7.42 3.31 6.33 7.32
Anions Sulfur: p.p.m. 21 17 21 19 22
Mehlich III Phosphorous: ppm 53 38 45 48 47
Exchangeable Calcium ppm: Desired Value 1957 1800 1587 1456 1876
Cations Value Found 2192 1919 1719 1501 1594
Deficit −282
Magnesium ppm: Desired Value 207 190 168 154 198
Value Found 124 180 116 136 71
Deficit −82 −10 −52 −18 −127
Potassium ppm: Desired Value 224 206 182 167 215
Value Found 112 86 81 60 54
Deficit −112 −120 −101 −107 −161
Sodium: ppm 21 18 19 17 17
Base Calcium (60 to 70%) 76.17 72.46 73.62 70.10 57.77
Saturation % Magnesium (10 to 20%) 7.21 11.30 8.28 10.59 4.29
Potassium (2 to 5%) 2.00 1.66 1.77 1.44 1.00
Sodium (.5 to 3%) 0.64 0.58 0.71 0.68 0.53
Other Bases (Variable) 5.00 5.00 5.10 5.20 6.40
Exchangeable Hydrogen (10 to 15%) 9.00 9.00 10.50 12.00 30.00
Trace Boron (p.p.m.) 0.79 0.71 0.68 0.84 0.48
Elements Iron (p.p.m.) 197 206 200 236 186
Manganese (p.p.m.) 38 23 35 43 14
Zinc (p.p.m.) 2.52 1.78 1.8 1.92 1.03
Aluminum (p.p.m.) 6.29 4.86 5.2 4.88 3.66
Other Cobalt 784 790 843 815 921
Molybdenum 0.41 0.37 0.4 0.52 0.26
Selenium 0.15 0.07 0.06 0.1 0.04
Silicon ppm 35.83 31.74 26.64 29.39 15.74
EC 0.17 0.11 0.07 0.08 0.1
Logan Labs LLC
A complete and thorough soil test will help you with soil fertility management. Image courtesy of Jack Lazor, from Logan Labs

26
 Soil Fertility Considerations
Reading the Soil Test
Whether you interpret the results yourself or you
rely on the advice of a professional, a current soil
test will give you the basic information on where
to start with a potential grain crop. (A sample test
results sheet from Logan Labs appears on page 26.)
The first thing to consider is the soil’s base satura-
tion of calcium, magnesium, and potassium. If the
percentage of calcium is lower than 70, calcitic or
high-calcium lime should be added. If magnesium
and calcium are both low, then dolomite or high-
magnesium lime needs to be added. The calcium-
to-magnesium ratio is essential for soil health and
proper plant growth as calcium is the element that
helps all of the other minerals mobilize. (Well-
known soils consultant Gary Zimmer calls calcium
“the trucker of all minerals.”) Magnesium is more
of a catalyst and is responsible for proper cell func-
tion. Limestone is slow to break down, so it’s best to
choose the right kind of lime in the very beginning.
Overapplications of dolomite can send magnesium
levels off the chart, which will cause “tightness” and
poor drainage in a soil. On the other hand, excessive
levels of calcium will make a soil too alkaline and
prevent the uptake of other minerals. Phosphorous
and sulfur are both anions or negatively charged
elements. Phosphorous is responsible for root
growth and early-season plant vigor. Sulfur should
be present at least at the fifty-parts-per-million
level. It is essential for the proper synthesis of
nitrogen compounds into protein within the plant.
Boron is more of a trace element and helps with
calcium function. Both boron and sulfur are quite
easily leached for most soils, and small amounts
should be applied yearly to maintain a healthy soil
mineral balance. Soil mineral fertility will be dis-
cussed at length throughout this book in relation
to the individual grain crops, but at this point it
is important to understand that a proper balance
of calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, and a wide
array of minor minerals is far more essential than
27
the simplistic NPK accounting system practiced in
conventional agriculture. Having a complete and
comprehensive soil test in hand before putting any
seeds in the ground is akin to starting a journey
into an unknown territory with a good road map.
Soil Fertility as
Part of a Holistic System
Nitrogen function, availability, and delivery are seen
in a totally different light when the comparison is
made between a conventional and an organic system
of farming. Notice that there are no categories
on the Logan Labs test for ammonium, nitrite,
or nitrate. Total percent of soil organic matter is
the only category that even comes close. Plants
certainly need nitrogen to grow whether under
organic or conventional management. Adequate
nitrate nitrogen is supplied to plants through a
dynamic relationship among respiring active soil
microbial life, carbonaceous humic compounds, and
balanced soil minerals all taking place in a friable
and aerated soil medium. Crop rotation plays an
extremely important role in an organic system as
well. Lighter-feeding crops like beans and cereals,
for example, should always follow heavy feeders
like corn and wheat. Our atmosphere is 80 percent
nitrogen, and legumes like beans, clovers, and alfalfa
will “fix” atmospheric nitrogen into the soil with
the help of rhizobium bacteria. Hay crops with
plenty of alfalfa and clover mixed with the grasses
play an integral part in a low-input organic crop
rotation. A heavy-feeding crop with high nitrogen
requirements can be grown without any N inputs
(manure, compost, or fertilizer) on a plowed hay
crop; while the plowed-down sod decomposes
throughout the growing season, small amounts of
nitrate are continually released by the soil microlife
as they consume the hay crop residue. In an organic
system, we do everything possible to understand
and work in unison with nature’s cycles. We are
trying to build fertility while we farm, and we are
 The Organic Grain Grower

not getting soluble nitrogen from a fertilizer bag dioxide as we can out of the sky and lock it back
while we consume precious energy and resources. into the earth’s crust as stable humus. I believe that
The bottom line is that as we coax food from the as organic farmers, we can be extremely productive
land, we are also trying to take as much carbon and heal the earth at the same time.

28