 Okay we're in a corn field at Cronin Farms this afternoon and one of the first things that becomes very apparent is the amount of residue or armor that's on the soil surface. So if you think in terms of the carbon cycle and you take a corn plant approximately one third of the carbon produced is going to be in the grain and then approximately one third is going to be in the above ground residue in the above ground plant and then approximately one third will be in the root mass and so agriculture is an extraction business. So we're going to be taking some of that carbon in the form of grain off of this field and really what it comes down to then is offsetting that impact through rotation and through cover crops and through livestock integration. So if we take a look at what's on the residue right now the wheat stubble which is the armor it's taking the impact of the rainfall out of here as far as soil compaction moderating the temperature but most of it's going to oxidize and return to the atmosphere in terms of CO2. So it's a constant feed process and what we'll probably do is dig up a plant and just take a look at a little bit of a look at the food supply that's happening in terms of the soil food web. When we think in terms of carbon think in terms of food. So what's going to happen with this particular cornfield is that the stomata is going to be open during the day in the leaf the small opening and it's going to allow the CO2 to come into the plant and since the stomata is open it will let out oxygen and and water vapor. Well now the plant has the carbon inside of it. It's going to use the carbon to grow the above ground and the below ground biomass and a third item that the plant is going to do is it's going to give off exudates into the soil. These are sugar exudates and the soil food web is going to consume them. They're one of the principal foods of the soil food web and after they consume them they're going to do some of their soil services for us. One of the items would be they would build soil aggregates on the root mass itself and then they will also with the fungi and the plant together they will make the glues that hold these soil aggregates together. You can actually rub this plant rut and you can see how glued on they are and so consequently you're looking at any time we glue the aggregates together that helps us resist wind and water erosion and then also the soil aggregates are irregular in shape and so consequently we will have pore spaces in between the aggregates. The pore spaces are going to allow water and oxygen through the soil so infiltration is really a biological solution when we want to improve it. Now an additional item that the soil food web will do is the larger portions of the soil food web like the nematodes and the protozoa will eat the bacteria and the fungi in the vicinity of this whole root mass and they will actually convert nutrient from organic to inorganic plant available nutrient and then an additional item that they will do is they will move some of this carbon into the soil organic matter and it will help a nice increase in soil organic matter that Cronin Farms has been experiencing for a number of years as they move toward that four percent plus soil organic matter which is a very good indicator of soil health. Now another item we can take a look at is we can go ahead and nip off the end of this root mass and we can actually taste those exudates we can wash that off a bit or clean it off a little and we can taste them and you're going to taste a real pure sugar taste and so since you use another one of your senses it's a little easier to describe it and you can actually have the sensation of what that sugar tastes like but it gives us the understanding of how the carbon is released into the soil. Now another item we can do is we can take a look at the infiltration in this particular field we usually do that with a six inch ring that i drove into the ground three inches already so there's three inches sticking out on top and then it's six inches across and we'll put a little cellophane across it so we can pour the water in. We're just going to do a one inch infiltration on this six inch ring with 444 milliliters of water a little saran wrap so we'll pour the water in and please start the clock and we'll give it a little time if you look at the soil health parameters anytime we can put an inch of water in in less than than 10 minutes that's a indicator of soil health so we'll see how long this one takes you know some soils actually have an O horizon and this particular soil does if you take a look on the soil surface here you will actually see the organic material decomposition of the organic material on the soil surface so it's pretty pretty nice to see and it takes it takes armor and residue in the soil surface to achieve that so this particular soil has a nice decomposing organic matter layer on the soil surface as that becomes part of the soil organic matter and see it's the soil food web that actually builds infiltration and improves our infiltration as they build the soil aggregates and of course the residue takes the energy out of the rain but it's the the aggregates that are built by the biology that the water is looking for to infiltrate into the profile okay we can do infiltration and and other soil demonstrations to give us some indication of soil health of a field and infiltration is is just one means of doing that and so basically when you put inch of water into the container it's looking for a pore space so that it can move into the profile and of course it's the soil food web that that builds these pore spaces and these aggregates and so it gives us kind of an indication if we have water moving across the profile then we we're having trouble getting the the water into the profile and it's more likely to create erosion or water quality issues and we have water going into the profile then we have a much more stable environment and it's better from the viewpoint of crop production and water quality both