John Todd, of Living Machines fame and the New Alchemy Institute, has an interesting essay on http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/634 about the need for our urban and industrial society to understand the foundational role of soil, and the carbon cycle.

We are indebted to Darren Doherty's website regenag.com for the following information and video:

This is perhaps one of the oldest known films on the Keyline concept filmed on PA Yeomans' former farm 'Nevallan' circa 1955. Its somewhat remarkable from a few perspectives:
* It was produced by a Bank
* It was made at a time when fertiliser technology in agriculture was promising subsidised fertility out of a bag as opposed to conscious design and management of the natural elements
* It is 55 years on and we still have landscapes that rapidly shed water, soils that are eroding, rural communities shrinking, cities not feeding and watering themselves etc. etc. etc.

Keyline Farming 1955 from RegenAG on Vimeo.

In 1984 Sam Bingham wrote a short book for Navajo country called Living from Livestock. Though one or two items are outdated (such as the recommendation to build radial grazing cells) it is a wonderfully illustrated and trenchant introduction to the relationship of grazing to ecosystem function in an arid environment. Thanks to Sam we are able to offer it as downloadable pdfs. (Right click, Save As, to download.)

http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc... (about 8 MB)

or in sections:

http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...
http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...
http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...
http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...
http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...
http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...
http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...

and in French:

http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/vivredesontroupeau... (about 7 MB)

At long last the first draft of Measuring soil carbon change: a flexible, practical, local method is available for download, review, and use. About 2 megabytes, pdf.

It is intended as a guide for do-it-yourselfers as well as part of the operating method for the Soil Carbon Challenge. It is also the first guide that attempts to understand and accommodate the variety of purposes or objectives people have in measuring soil carbon. Up to now, soil carbon measurement has been treated almost exclusively as a technical issue. But the main sources of risk and uncertainty in achieving the objectives are social, having to do with beliefs and attitudes.

Based on published literature and experience, this method outlines how to establish fixed plots, take samples, get them analyzed with the dry combustion method, and make calculations from the results.

Though targeted primarily at those who want to show possibility, and get feedback for their management, the guide should be helpful for those who wish to quantify carbon tonnage for "offsets" or research projects as well. How and what you measure, as well as the sources of uncertainty, depend on your purpose.

Measuring carbon change means establishing and measuring baseline plots, and then remeasuring them after 3 years or so.

Depending on the intensity and depths needed, I can establish and measure 4 baseline plots for US$1000 plus travel. Contact Peter (peter at wallowa dot net) for details.

The Africa Centre for Holistic Management and Allan Savory have won the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. Congratulations to all involved, and may the recognition of the crucial importance of biosphere processes and biosphere work continue to spread.

http://www.savoryinstitute.com/imported-20100211170933-home/2010/6/2/all...

The New South Wales Department of Primary Industries has an interesting 60-page guide to growing soil organic matter in pastures.

"This book is based on findings from a three year project investigating soil carbon levels in pastures under different management practices in south east NSW. It is designed to be of practical use to farmers who want to increase their soil carbon levels. It includes basic information on soil carbon and reports the project's findings regarding the impact of pasture management on soil carbon."

It can be downloaded from here:

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/resources/soils/soil-carbon/increa...

Australian soil scientist Christine Jones has a new paper out that summarizes much of her conclusions about the soil carbon opportunity. "For some time, analysts have tipped carbon to become the world’s most traded commodity. The reality is that it has been the world’s most traded commodity for millennia." She also describes the crucial role of mycorrhizal fungi, and characterizes many of the conventional practices of modern industrial agriculture, such as the application of water-soluble nitrogen and phosphorus, along with soil disturbance, as inimical to the accumulation of beneficial carbon in the soil. Highly recommended, attached below.

Allan Yeomans, author of Priority One: Together We Can Beat Global Warming has a series of videos on climate change and soil. Here are Parts 1 and 2.

In general, statistical accuracy increases with the square root of sample size. Doubling your sensitivity and accuracy quadruples your cost. It's a power law, not a normal distribution, and it pushes us toward extremes.

In measuring soil carbon using traditional sampling, what this means is that the high achievers are easiest and cheapest to measure (circled red in the diagram below). A sampling scheme that is adequate for measuring a large change in soil carbon between an initial baseline and resampling, may not yield a significant result if the change turns out to be small.

Measurement will thus tend to highlight the more successful strategies, and the more motivated and successful managers.

Seth Godin, author of the book TRIBES, writes, "there is no tribe of normal. People don't coalesce into active and committed tribes around the status quo."

An excellent interview of Allan Savory by Jonathan Teller-Elsberg deals with the difference between reductionist research and process-oriented management, and brittle and nonbrittle environments. Savory discusses why reductionist research and conventional paradigms limit innovation.

"Successful new management developments and thinking of the last 60 years have been routinely 'killed' by the reductionist peer review process for example. Some have been adopted in name, but only after conversion to unsuccessful form to suit researcher paradigms and thus rendered useless. Some of the most successful management approaches and processes are simply ridiculed as anecdotal."

Posted here.