OCOMAMA, South Dakota — Dave Orilla farms east of Newell, South Dakota, raising cattle, sheep and irrigated hay.
Throughout his business, he utilizes soil health principles when managing grasslands. Diversity is the key to healthy rangelands.
“When we talk about soil health, we talk about rotating crops, not just growing the same crop over and over again. And in a rangeland community, there's so much plant diversity because each plant supports each other. It’s important,” O’Rear said. “The grass supports the soil. The legumes provide the grass with nitrogen, from which it grows to feed all the microorganisms in the soil.”
Soil cover is also important for healthy grasslands.
“Residue is important because it's not just used to retain moisture, because western South Dakota is in an area with low rainfall, so it retains all the water that's available and uses it for the rest of the year. Because you have to use it,” he said.
The residue looks like grass cuttings and is used to trap snow and insulate the ground, before penetrating into the soil to support plant and soil biology.
Rotational grazing is a common method for maintaining soil health.
“We try to rotate grazing to maintain a balance and not overgraze any area,” Ollila said. “That way, the roots regenerate each time the plant is properly grazed and not over-exploited. When the roots regenerate, the root hairs that previously supported the leaves die back and become carbon again. Plants produce new root hairs to absorb water and nutrients and produce new leaves.”
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Grasslands play a role in carbon sequestration.
“We can do that better than any tree or rainforest ever thought of,” Orilla said. “We think of trees as very huge and carbon-rich, but they only cover a certain area. But when you look at grass, the whole landscape is covered with grass. Because of that and the grass's reaction time, we can sequester carbon in a unique way.”
Even in the absence of grasslands, there are opportunities to use agricultural land for grazing.
“Agricultural land not only provides an opportunity to treat it like a grassland and graze its aftermath, but you can also put in cover crops for grazing again because you are cycling nutrients into the soil through the animals. So we not only create regeneration but also provide additional grazing land to support livestock,” he said.
Farmers make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, so it's important that farmers help share their stories.
“Land resource managers, farmers and ranchers own a lot of land, so to our urban cousins it looks like we have a lot of assets and wealth,” Orilla said. Told. “But just getting the whole system working takes a lot of time.”
When properly managed, grasslands can sequester carbon, filter water, and reduce pollution.
“It's important to communicate to our cousins in the city and to those who are not involved in agriculture that this could be a solution to the many environmental wolves we are facing,” Ollila said. . “That power allows us to sequester carbon that has been emitted since the dawn of the industrial revolution through the power of grazing alone.”
