Check out LSP’s ongoing Ear Dirt podcast series for conversations on cover cropping, no-till, managed rotational grazing, fungi, and just about anything else that builds soil health. You can check out all 295 episodes of our Ear to the Ground podcast here.

Ear to the Ground 308: Is Your Farm a Business?

Dave Pratt says most farms and ranches are just a collection of expensive assets and low-paying jobs. But such a dysfunctional business model is not inevitable.

Ear to the Ground 303: Silvo Savvy

Farmers like Tom Hunter are setting out to prove that trees and livestock can mix in a way that creates an ecological -economic equilibrium.

Ear to the Ground 301: Pipe Dreams

When a tiling company suggested more pipe to deal with drainage issues, Tom Finnegan opted to go to the root of the problem.

Ear to the Ground 300: Diversity Trumps Adversity

Illinois farmer Dave Bishop says rural communities can’t “monoculture” their way out of the economic, ecological, and social challenges that plague them. But diversifying successfully isn’t just a numbers game.

Ear to the Ground 299: Road to Resilience

Laura Lengnick believes that if farms are to survive (and thrive) in the age of climate change, we need to remember it’s not just about soil and water — it’s also about people.

Ear to the Ground 297: Web of Willing Workers

Scientist Elaine Ingham believes minding the microbes makes farmers the masters of their own destiny.

Ear to the Ground 296: Stability is Sexy

Rick Clark’s no-till organic system is all about treating cover crops like cash crops — because they are.

Ear to the Ground 295: Patchwork Quilt Stewardship

John Ledermann’s rental relationships are built on healthy soil.

Ear to the Ground 292: Working the Microbes

David Johnson and Hui-Chun Su Johnson’s approach to composting may help farming reach the ultimate regenerative ag pinnacle: self-sufficient soil.

Ear to the Ground 291: Shovel Doesn’t Lie

What Allen Williams unearthed on the farm of Rachelle and Jordan Meyer.

Ear to the Ground 290: Silt Suppression

How the Bergler family stopped “chasing their tails,” started fixing their farm’s damaged soils, and welcomed curious queries.

Ear to the Ground 289: Reflections on a Revolution

Two decades after crop failures almost ended his farming career, soil health pioneer Gabe Brown reflects on how far the regenerative ag movement has come…and where it’s going.

Ear to the Ground 288: More with Less

Tom Cotter sees his return on investment tied directly to how freely he lets soil biology do its job — and that starts with a diverse community above and below ground.

Ear to the Ground 287: Opportunity Knocks

As an accountant and a farmer, Joe Lawler sees building soil health as a way to strike a balance between economic and ecological success…and boy is it fun to see a pollinator planting come to life.

Ear to the Ground 286: Tractor Seat Economics

Everett Rolfing knew one thing for certain: no-till would never work on his farm. His soil had a different idea.

Ear to the Ground 281: Report from the Underground

A journey into southeastern Minnesota’s geological basement reveals that building soil health can help make “clear” and “clean” equal the same thing.

Ear to the Ground 280: Maximum vs. Optimal

Adhering to the tenets of Ag Econ 101, a pair of beginning farmers are avoiding commodity row crops and embracing grazing, silvopasturing, and “bale grazed veggies.”

Ear to the Ground 279: We Are What We Eat

There’s a connection between the biome beneath our feet and the bounty on our table. Allen Williams thinks research linking soil health and nutrient density of food holds huge potential for advancing regenerative agriculture. (4th of 4 parts in a series)

Ear to the Ground 278: It Can Happen Anywhere

Allen Williams describes how regenerative practices are working on four farming operations representing widely divergent geographical locations and enterprises. (3rd of 4 parts in a series)

Ear to the Ground 277: 3 Regenerative Rules

Allen Williams asks, “What is a weed?” and lays out the three rules of adaptive stewardship. (2nd of 4 parts in a series)

Ear to the Ground 276: Why Regenerative Ag?

Allen Williams believes that farming in nature’s image isn’t just a nice idea, it’s an agricultural/ecological imperative. (1st of 4 parts in a series)

Ear to the Ground 274: From Dirt to Diversity

How Scott and Amanda Holthaus are transforming corn-soybean ground into perennial pasture utilizing soil biology and the rotational grazing of diverse cover crops.

Ear to the Ground 271: Focusing on Fungi

Maks Kopish is looking through a microscope and seeing a way for soil to be self-reliant.

Ear to the Ground 270: It Doesn’t Rain Grass

In an area that receives 8-10 inches of precipitation annually, Mexican rancher Alejandro Carrillo’s philosophy is: “It’s not how much rain you get, it’s what you do with it.” That’s why he makes sure that water falling out of the sky has a friendly reception on the ground.

Ear to the Ground 269: Soil’s Stairway to Heaven

Mike Seifert is using cover cropping and no-till to make up for the soil damage caused by years of heavy metal tillage. One rainy night, his headlamp illuminated the results.

Ear to the Ground 268: Rolling Down the CC River

A farmer, a soil conservationist, and a crops specialist talk about how the roller crimper system can help extend the benefits of a cover crop.

Ear to the Ground 267: Bringing Science Back to the Farm

A 4th grade experiment launched farmer Connor McCormick down a path of researching linkages between ecology, agricultural economics, and healthy soil.

Ear to the Ground 266: Activating Soil Life

How farmers involved in an LSP research project hope to use the Johnson-Su Bioreactor composting system to spark a chain reaction of underground ecological activity.

Ear to the Ground 260: Soil Health’s Long View

Martin Larsen’s integration of small grains into his cropping operation is centered on building economic and ecological resiliency beyond the next growing season.

Ear to the Ground No. 259: Kernza’s Stress Test

In his ongoing attempt to create a regenerative, soil-healthy farm, Kaleb Anderson is pushing a plant science breakthrough further using rotational grazing

Ear to the Ground No. 257: The House that Biology Built

Tillage can do a lot of things, but building soil isn’t one of them. Soil expert Steve Lawler and Minnesota farmer Jon Jovaag talk about the importance of using nature as a guide when preparing a seed bed and bolstering the soil’s structure.

Ear to the Ground No. 256: From Sugar High to Soil Health

Soil health cheerleader Ray Archuleta and Iowa farmer Mervin Beachy talk about taking agroecological innovations from the “excitement stage” to the “action stage”…and the importance of aha moments.

Ear to the Ground No. 255: Embracing the Weed

What happened when beginning farmers Rachelle and Jordan Meyer started listening to the land and turned livestock loose on a “bacterial farm.”

Ear to the Ground No. 254: Mastering an Evolutionary Monster

Farmer Tom Frantzen talks about hybrid rye, ecological resiliency, and why being uncomfortable isn’t always a bad thing.

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