This is the interesting thing. Now, have we done that extensive a testing? No. But a plant needs approximately 21. 19 to 21 nutrients to grow depending on what species it is. A human being needs about 70. That’s got to come from somewhere. The moral of my story is, we need healthy soils in order that we can get all those nutrients. Have I done an extensive analysis? No. No. I won’t pay to do that unless the researcher comes and does it for free, because I’m allergic to writing checks. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll just finish up with a couple slides here.
I told you we’ve accomplished this without any added microbial, foliars, anything other than seed and a little bit of livestock mineral. That’s all we’ve put in there. One’s ability to be successful with regenerative agriculture is directly related to one’s understanding of how soil functions. I really, really believe that. That’s all it took and boy I learned slow. My books are See Spot, See Spot Run. I’m not very intelligent but I got to learn everything the hard way. But, as I looked at soil and started to learn about soils. That just opened a whole new world for me, because that slide where Ray Archuleta said, “Plant and soil are one.” That’s what it’s about. You’ve got to first grow something in order to grow soil. You can’t grow soil without the plant, you need them both. Then you need the biology and everything else.
We have to understand how soil ecosystem functions. I’m in no way saying that all of you needed to be doing everything I needed to do. It’s going to be different on each operation. But, assure me, everywhere in the world I go, and I’m sure Colin would back me up. Graeme, Annabel, all back me up.
These principles, those principles that I had: nature’s way, no mechanical disturbance, armour around the soil, diversity, leaving root in the ground as long as possible and then species integration are just critical. They’ll work anywhere in the world. Wouldn’t you say Colin? Absolutely. That’s what it’s about. It’s as simple as that. There’s my contact information. Feel free to contact me anytime. I know there’s a lot of people in this room I’ve talked to and emailed over the years. I try really hard to answer all the emails. I may not answer the phone calls right away if I’m in a conference but I do try hard to do so. It’s exciting to me to come back here now and visit with these people that are trying these practises and that are really moving forward with them, because it’s working. It works anywhere. I’m extremely confident of that.
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