The health and productivity of soils, livestock, plants, landscapes, ecology and people is guided and shaped by deliberate disturbance — deliberate in the sense that the choice to implement a specific disturbance is a considered, conscious and intentional one.

A choice that gets made as a subconscious pattern of habit, indoctrination or dogma is not a deliberate choice. To be good stewards of the landscape, we need to make mindful choices of the disturbances we impose.

All active management decisions and actions result in imposing a disturbance, whether that be grazing livestock, pruning a tree, moving a fence, locating a water trough, adding a soil amendment, using a wormer, adding fertilizer, spraying a pesticide or tilling the soil.

Disturbance is a reset action that can lead to greater soil and ecosystem health and productivity when used wisely. And disturbance can also reset soil and ecosystem health backward when not used wisely.

Reset actions and wise disturbance are a foundational requirement to trigger optimal health and performance outcomes and are inherent in natural ecosystem function.

When a thermodynamic system remains in equilibrium, there is no output of energy or growth. If we desire for an ecosystem to evolve, to grow, to expand its carrying capacity and its biological diversity, then there is a requirement for stewardship decisions to move things temporarily out of equilibrium.

Deliberate disturbance in an ecosystem is the equivalent of pushing a pendulum. Without a push, eventually a pendulum stops moving and there is no further energy output.

A slight touch to reset it will get it moving again, and the energy released from the back-and- forth oscillation is cumulative and much greater than the energy applied to get it restarted. A pendulum with no movement is a pendulum at equilibrium. A natural ecosystem at equilibrium, with no disturbances to reset it, is static and begins to decline.

Any specific disturbance is not inherently good or bad. The question to be determined is whether a particular disturbance serves as a beneficial reset action in a particular context. When a reset action is applied, does it lead to greater ecosystem health and function in a reasonable timeline? A reset action that is very valuable in one context may be detrimental in another. A reset action that is needed only once in one context might be needed routinely in another.

A volcano is a reset action that can produce very positive ecosystem outcomes over a decades- long time period. A large bison herd eating every green leaf to the ground for weeks at a time is a reset action that appears to have negative consequences in the short term but is a long-term net positive.

Pruning a vine or tree of a large percentage of its total biomass might appear to some as a major short-term negative, but we know that the disequilibrium this creates leads to much greater productivity.

Thinking about deliberately creating productive disequilibrium and deliberate reset actions that fit our particular context provides us with a first-principles framework such that we can lose all manner of dogma and indoctrination in our thinking. This approach is invaluable, for we have a lot of dogma to overcome around the use and value of some types of disturbance.

Conscious Soil Resets

Soil is frequently described as being composed of three different macro components. We have the soil's physical characteristics — the types and proportions of the particles it is composed of (sand, silt and clay), organic matter, and the degree of aggregation.

We also have the soil's biological characteristics — the degree of health and vibrancy of the overall soil microbiome. And we have the soil chemistry component — the balance of soil minerals and nutrients.

Each of these three components affects the other two in a major way. If you illustrated their impact on each other with a three-ring Venn diagram, the circles would largely overlap.

• Soil biology entirely determines the degree of aggregation and thus affects the soil's physical characteristics in a major way.
• Soil chemistry determines clay colloid aggregation and the proportion of plant sugars that are transported to the soil through the roots, so it impacts both soil biology and soil structure.
• Soil structure and the ability for gas exchange and water percolation determine the degree of microbiome and root development that is possible.

Each of these three is inextricably intertwined. You cannot reset one without affecting the others.

There are many instances where we may want to reset a soil. Perhaps we need to reset the weed species that are dominant, which reflect all three soil components. Possibly we need to reset the microbiome so that a certain organism is no longer pathogenic. Maybe our soil is highly weathered or compacted, and we need to reset the physical component so that the microbiome and plant roots can thrive.

It is common today to engage in many reset actions without deliberate thought. Soil amendment applications reset the soil chemistry balance. Many fertilizers reset both the soil chemistry and the microbiome balance. Pesticide applications reset the soil microbiome balance. Tillage resets the soil's physical characteristics, though only temporarily, unless done continuously, in which case the reset can be quite enduring.

If we continue with our pendulum metaphor, healthy reset action sequences push on both sides of the pendulum, swinging it back and forth and producing more productivity and ecosystem health. And they produce outcomes entirely disproportionate to the energy input.

All in the Timing

Imagine that you have a small dead tree that you want to get on the ground. It is unstable but well beyond your ability to push over — unless you use a pendulum effect, in resonance with the tree’s movement. You use a pole to reach as high as possible, and every time the tree’s swing begins to move away from you, you push a little harder.

Timing the push (the reset action) with the natural swing (resonance) amplifies the force to produce a disproportionate outcome so that you’re able to push over a tree that you never would have been able to by simply pushing on it directly.

When reset actions push on both sides of the pendulum, in resonance, you get peak movement, peak energy output, peak ecosystem productivity and vibrance.

When reset actions continually push on one side of the pendulum only, they eventually push the pendulum all the way to one side — the pendulum stops swinging, and the energy output or productivity crashes.

One of the reasons the reset actions of tillage, fertilizer application and pesticide application are considered so detrimental to soil health is that they are generally applied constantly, with no consideration for resonance, and no consideration for applying pressure on the other side of the pendulum swing.

With the constant pressure on one side of the pendulum only, and no alternating reset actions, the pendulum eventually slows and then stops. Soil health declines, and then plateaus, at a very low level.

• A mob of cattle grazing at a high stock density can be a very positive reset action in some contexts. If it is repeated continuously, though, or if the natural oscillations are ignored, it becomes detrimental.
• A limestone application can be a very positive soil chemistry reset action in some contexts. If it is repeated too often, or not balanced with acidity (from, say, root exudates) it becomes detrimental.
• A fertilizer application on soils that have poor energy flow, low electrical conductivity, and biology that is not yet able to deliver the nutrients needed is a valuable reset action. If repeated continually, however, it can become detrimental.
• A physical soil disturbance with tillage can be a very positive reset action in some contexts.

If it is repeated continuously or not balanced with the aggregation ability of microbes that are fed large amounts of sugars from plant roots, it becomes detrimental.

Soils do not respond to all reset actions equally, as we well know. Some soils need multiple soil amendment resets, others only one. Some need multiple fertilizer applications; others need fewer. Some need multiple physical resets over time; others need fewer, or none.

Optimizing Disturbances

“Minimizing disturbance to the soil" has been defined as “no-till.” But in fact, when you add fertilizers and herbicides, you are disturbing soil equilibrium — often significantly.

The way it is commonly practiced today, no-till is often low physical disturbance, but not low chemical or biological disturbance. I have observed many soils managed in this way become more compacted over time and have difficulty reaching a state of having a healthy microbiome and healthy physical soil structure.

In some contexts, when soil has a compaction layer that prevents deep rooting and gas exchange, resetting the soil's physical characteristics with a tillage pass is the best and most appropriate reset action, or pendulum push.

The thing about pendulums is that they have an inherent oscillation cycle, just as ecosystems do. You can give the pendulum a big shove all at once and invest a lot of energy in getting it moving with a lot of momentum. This is what Gary Zimmer does when he describes investing an entire year in soil building, adding soil amendments and incorporating cover crops. This is one big hard push on the pendulum to get it moving and productive.

(Note: Gary Zimmer will be one of the speakers at the National Cover Crop Summit being held March 18-20. CLICK HERE to find out more.)

Alternatively, if you do not have the resources to invest in a single big push to jumpstart a field, you can study how to time your pushes and the optimal sequence of reset actions to produce the best outcomes with a softer touch on the landscape.

We need to evaluate the merits of reset actions that others use in their context based on the quality of the outcomes they produce, both in terms of harvest outcomes — yields — and ecosystem health outcomes, such as erosion or lack thereof. Then, we can determine whether those reset actions are appropriate and can be adapted to our context.

In prairie soils that are little weathered, that easily develop deep gas exchange, that rapidly aggregate to significant depth, and that are highly susceptible to wind and water erosion, a reset action of tillage is unlikely to produce good ecosystem outcomes — or good harvest outcomes in the long term.

In forest soils that contain highly weathered clay, that compact very easily, and that easily stifle deep gas exchange, a deliberate reset action of tillage can be very beneficial — it can produce good ecosystem outcomes and good harvest outcomes. However, using tillage regularly in these types of soils is almost certain to lead to poor ecosystem outcomes, and poor harvest outcomes, over time.

What Good Stewardship Is

There are many highly regarded and experienced farmers with centuries of experience between them who have observed the value of tillage as an occasional reset action. In my opinion, when a soil has a compaction layer such that soil microbes can't breathe, and plant roots do not penetrate, and you advise farmers to not engage in a reset action of tillage, you are doing them a disservice.

We need to prepare compacted soil to be no-till, and in many soils we will probably need to reset them occasionally unless we run controlled traffic.

Good stewardship is not about minimizing disturbances, but about optimizing disturbances to produce the best ecosystem and productivity outcomes. Instead of considering disturbances to be universally harmful, it will be valuable to shift our mindset to think of them as the actions of a conscious grower.

Regeneration is not easy – we need to make use of every available tool at our disposal to restore our farm ecosystems and grow bountiful, profitable, quality crops.