The Importance of Observation and Monitoring.
You can't manage what you don't measure.
Observation is very important, though only one part of the equation; noticing how long ruminants are grazing, what time of the day do they start ruminating, how long do they ruminate for; all these indicate to us how much feed there is and the quality of that feed.
Observing dung scores and rumen fill is a particularly good indicator of what the animal is telling us. The short-term indicators include species (grass, forbes and living organisms) variation and type; density of basal spacings; bare ground whether capped or broken; functioning litter surface; dung decomposition; micro surface erosion from wind and water are what are termed by Savoury as "Leading Indicators", are depictive of management and changes made.
The Savoury Institute through their Land to Market programme have developed an Ecological Outcome Verification™ (EOV™) programme which allows everyone from farmers to consumers to ascertain whether stewardship of living landscapes is being positive or negative. The adage - " you can't manage what you don't measure" is equally as important if not more so than tracking what weight gain an animal is achieving or what your Brix levels in the paddock are. They are all important and the question being - monitoring your land and its eco system functions is critical to getting an understanding of stewardship.
Even if a farmer does not follow EOV™ methodology there are still practices that can be followed to get an understanding of what is happening on & in their 'patch'. Short and long-term Indicators need to be identified so that a baseline can be derived from which to go forward.
Visual Soil Assessment
There are many different methodologies used, fundamentally they are all similar but aware that this space is also changing in how we understand, the more time working in it, the more time realising how little we know; redox, quorum sensing, plant metabolite relationships are but a few, but it is more about knowing the fundamental grounding principles which are the constants in this changing complicated field. Much the same as needing to classify Regenerative Ag or Holistic Management, we need to put things in boxes, this is different to nature and holism, where everything is connected. We need to keep our minds open to this constantly evolving and growing sphere. It is more about realising that we are all connected, and it is trying to understand the pattern which connects each to the other, that is important.
The Long-Term aspects that we look at, include the short-term criteria but we start looking at factors that take a couple of years to change. So, measurements like Soil Organic Matter; Soil Carbon; water infiltration; soil structure; climax species gain; ecological functions are monitored so ecosystem process can be validated from earlier management changes made.
In conjunction with observation, soil analysis, plant tissue test, microbial testing of the soil are tests give fixed points in time as to progress being made. The visual measurements are from a score card which looks at basal stem areas, ground, species identification, infiltration, soil structure, slaking etc. Basically, everything at the interface of the surface. Seasons can also play a large factor in these figures as well. There are times when balance is vitally important and changes cannot be made all at once, slower is certainly better.
NOV 2019 RR 305mm
FEB 2020 RR 288mm
I have been fortunate in working with Imogen Semmler in getting the base lining done, because it is always easier doing this monitoring with a second person, it makes it a lot more fun. Imogen then put together the data collected so that it became understandable as to what effect stewardship was having on the soil and tracking the path forward.
On the back of working with the soils and Ecosystem services, Natural Capital Accounting is an audit we should all be getting done. What it does is put into perspective our complete stewardship.
The Results:
