Baseline Findings

We are very lucky to have Nour El-Naboulsi, a talented soil scientist and farmer, on our team. With his help, we spent last year gathering baseline data for our soil health and detailed measures of the overall field conditions.

Last year’s findings paint a clear picture of our starting place: intense soil compaction, limited water absorption, key nutrient deficiencies, a narrow set of plant species, and little in the way of biological life in the soil. These depleted conditions are intrinsically woven together and come from a cycle of extraction where the soil ecosystem eventually collapses into a geological substrate. In order for anything to grow that medium, the bare ingredients for life must be re-administered at each cycle.

So—the end of that road is where we find our starting place. In a sense, it’s a humbling place to begin, but it also makes our goals very clear:

• Increase aeration and permeability

• Restore the nutrient balance

• Broaden the plants species to better support the sheep, pollinators & wildlife

• Kickstart the flywheel of biological life in the soil

We’ll be using grazing animals, agroforestry plantings, nutrient amendments, over-seeding, and innovative soil trials as we go. We hope you’ll follow along as we document our adventures in farming here at Bell & Burrow.

-Cally McDougall

Farm Director