More on the canopy effect…..

You know how during the summer we have some days where the air temp is high and the humidity is just maxed out and it feels like you’re walking around in a bowl of soup???......That’s how the air needs to be just above the soil surface in your field for as many days this summer as possible in order to efficiently decompose a big crop of cereal grain biomass in a timely manner. The way that you create these conditions on a constant basis is through proper C:N balance and by getting a thick roof of vegetation covering over that hay biomass. This shields it from the sun and keeps it in a nice, moist state for long periods of time like if it were in a greenhouse. It allows those perfect conditions for decomposition to occur and allows the soil fungi and bacteria an opportunity to effectively do their job. If you don’t get it well covered over with vegetation then it just bakes in the sun.

You might say “Well, I’m gonna add some milorgranite and keep the deer off my peas for a while”……but if a few weeks go by and the deer come back and wipe out all of the vegetation anyways and expose your hay to the sun again then you’re not much better off in the long run……you’ve just hit the shutdown button on your soil factory that does the processing work of decomposition….… Once that biomass is canopied over then you don’t want to see the surface again until you’re ready to transition to your fall crop....... at which time it should be decomposed and gone and ready to put down the summer biomass you just grew……rotation after rotation after rotation…….recycling biomass crop after biomass crop after biomass crop……..summer, fall, spring……..summer, fall, spring.

If scale wont allow you to accomplish these critical tasks then you will not be moving forward and progressing.