Water Holding Capacity of our Soil

Hurricane Helene went over the top of us, thankfully she had lost most of her punch by the time she reached us.  We got 3” of rain and just one evening of 40 mph winds.

The hurricane was a reminder to us of the importance of our sustainability efforts. Because we practice no-till and use high root growth cover crops, our soils do a great job of soaking in the rain.

A UK professor used our soil to demonstrate that over the course of a day it can absorb 8”!!  I’ve never tested that, but we did see practically no runoff from our fields with the 3” of rain.

It also reemphasized our day-to-day work on sequestering carbon and reducing carbon emissions to decrease the global warming impact. The warm temperatures of the gulf of 84-85 degrees was a contributing factor in the storm's intensity. It's one of the many reasons why our Ultimate Beef Research Project is so important.

The pictures are from an NRCS demonstration where they took soil from our fields and compared it to conventionally farmed land. Farmers were able to see how tilling the soil doesn't actually help with water penetrating the soil. The water in these fields actually runs right off the soil because it forms a hard crust vs. ours that acts more like a sponge.

You can see the set up in the first picture and the bottom of the samples in the second picture. This demo has been really impactful in showing the difference. You can actually watch the full demonstration on YouTube here.