To provide quality drinking water for its municipal population, the City of York purchased 400 acres of farm ground east of the city in 2008. The property was developed into what is now the York Wellfield. The city has relied on the agricultural revenue from this property to offset the costs of the wellfield development.
Project GROW will change the current conditions on 160 acres of the total 400, by using no-till, cover crops, and unconventional crop rotations to improve soil health, increase water infiltration, decrease soil erosion, and improve profitability.
At the beginning of October, the UBB NRD will take a soil sample.
What is soil health?
Soil health is defined as the capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans. Soil contains living organisms that when provided the basic necessities of life—food, shelter and water—perform functions required to produce food and fiber.
Soil Health for Nebraska Wealth
The Nebraska Healthy Soils Task Force Report: Findings, Recommendations, and Action Plan (2020)
Why is soil health important?
As worldwide populations and food production demands rise, keeping our soil healthy and productive is very important. By farming using soil health principles and systems that include no-till, cover cropping, and diverse rotations, more and more farmers are actually increasing their soil’s organic matter and improving microbial activity. As a result, farmers are sequestering more carbon, increasing water infiltration, improving wildlife and pollinator habitat, all the while harvesting better profits and often better yields.
What does healthy soil look like?
Healthy soil does not contain vertical layers, but rather soil aggregates (macro pores) that are horizontal throughout the soil root zone. These aggregates allow for moisture to infiltrate to roots and other living organisms in the soil. A healthy soil can be compared to a sponge in that it has pore space for storage of air and water.
How are we going to achieve healthier soil on the wellfield?
Our farming system will be using soil health principles and systems that includes no-till, cover cropping, and diverse rotations. This system of farming will increase soil organic matter, improve microbial-activity and increase water infiltration.
What caused the wellfield soil to be unhealthy?
One reason is a lack of diversity of the crops that had been planted on the wellfield prior to the NRD engagement. Also, there were plants growing on the wellfield for only four to five months out of the total growing season. This fallow period for the remainder of the growing season could not feed the microbial population in the soil. Soil is a living resource and needs to be fed to be healthy and productive.
Why is it important to make sure that soil is healthy on the wellfield?
An obvious answer is that the wells located on the wellfield that supply the City of York drinking water need to produce water from the aquifer that is clean from contaminates, mainly nitrates. A healthy soil acts as a filtering system having a diverse plant population growing with expansive root systems that uses the nitrogen for growth and can “tie-up” excess nitrogen in the root zone so it cannot leach into the aquifer.