grasses. one more worm.
and microbes.
Plowing damages the soil structure, exposing soil carbon to the air where it combines with oxygen and "floats away as carbon dioxide". There is a growing movement among small farmers who are calling themselves soil farmers, microbe farmers, carbon farmers.
This is no till agriculture. The soil, instead of being plowed, is planted with a machine that punches slits in the soil through the roots and debris of last years crop, dropping seed in those slits. The residue of a season's crop is chopped, spread and left there which reduces erosion, keeps soil temperature cooler during hot months, and provides food for earthworms and other creatures that aerate the soil, enrich it, make it porous and absorbant.
An earthworm can drag a leaf down more than 3 ft into the soil.
Paraphrased from the Soil Will Save Us .... Kristin Ohlson
