Ag Alert. May 18, 2022

Rock Continued from Page 7

Rock dust at Bowles Farming Co. in Los Banos, left, is being used in carbon sequestration tri- als for crops including corn and alfalfa. Below, Cornell University researchers inspect amended soil in a corn field in New York.

with Houlton, Azevedo was attracted to the project for two reasons. First, the project was reasonably low tech and would fit easily into modern ag- ricultural practices. “I don’t need any special equipment. I don’t need any special handling re- strictions,” Azevedo said. “The rock-dust amendment is similar to gypsum or potash or compost or chicken manure. All these other things that can be applied to the soil, worked in, and it’s not hazardous.” Second, the chemistry behind it looked to have a reasonably good probability for success, Azevedo said. The project started with 30 acres at Bowles Farming—a 15-acre block of corn and another 15-acre block of alfalfa. The row crop has been rotated with corn, then tomatoes, followed by winter cilan- tro, then back to tomatoes. This gives re- searchers an opportunity to measure the rock amendment on a wide range of crops, Azevedo explained. Houlton anticipated pretty significant carbon sequestration rates and 50% yield increases, Azevedo said. “If I got a 10% in- crease in yield, that’d be a big deal,” he said. Currently, it’s too early to tell on yield re- sults, Azevedo said. “One of the challenges with some of the crops like alfalfa is that it is a little bit difficult to measure yield, although they did see some increases. I

believe it was 15% or 20% increase in an alfalfa yield,” he said. The trials are also being conducted on permanent crops such as almonds and olives. “For some of them, we’re testing annual applications where we till it into the ground before planting. Some of them we’re testing where we maybe apply once every few years,” Boudinot said. With alfalfa, it may be applied once and then monitored to see how long the ben- efits last. With almonds, it’s applied a few times a year or annually.

Research is also being conducted on turf. “Turf is heavily managed and irri- gated, so they might aerate it, or in some cases, they even inject minerals into the subsurface for turf management on golf courses or parks,” Boudinot said. Boudinot is hopeful the rock amend- ment can reduce the need for nitrogen applications, and they’re finding the rock amendment may improve the retention of nitrogen fertilizer. Boudinot said researchers are also part- nering with some engineers to remove the toxic elements from industrial waste and develop ways to utilize useful elements such as magnesium and calcium. This is another waste byproduct that’s being pro- duced worldwide in enormous quantities, and with slight modification, it can be ap- plied to agriculture lands. “That’s something we’re developing, but it highlights that there are enormous opportunities to create or access amend- ments to drive this type of reaction,” Boudinot said. Rock amendments aren’t like incorpo- rating a synthetic fertilizer into the ground, where it’s taken up by the plants for the number of days, Azevedo said.

“Rock weathering is a slow process that just takes time, and soil temperatures factor into it. I think the chemistry is slow moving,” Azevedo said. “One of the cultur- al artifacts of farming is that some things just take time.” Overall, Azevedo said he is excited about the research. “I think every year that goes by is going to give us an answer to whether or not this is something that we can roll out in a larger scale,” he said. While costs will factor in, there is also the carbon sequestering component to consider, Azevedo continued. If growers see benefits to sequestering the carbon, the costs of the rock amendment could be offset. “It’s just too early to say, at a retail level, is it worth it or not. There’s just not enough data at this point,” Azevedo said. Bowles Farming supports the research, he said, because “we believe our consum- ers are expecting us and our partners to solve some of these bigger problems that are concerning to them.” (Kathy Coatney is a reporter in Bend, Oregon. She may be contacted at kacoatney@gmail.com.)

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8 Ag Alert May 18, 2022