Located in Arion, USA, Garrett Farm is a champion in building soil carbon through healthier soils and higher yields by using natural nutritional products. All this is achieved by climate smart farming practices, including continuous no till farming, multi crop rotations, annual applications of composts and manure, and utilizing livestock to enhance crop residue recovery.
Healthier soils through natural solutions
The farm owner Kelly Garrett is proud to be a sixth generation good steward of the Garrett land. Sequestering carbon in soil through no till farming or no turning over of the field, makes more carbon available to the microbes which convert the nutrients into a plant available form, resulting in healthier soils and higher yields and at the same time lowering cost and reducing risk. In addition, Kelly started adding Plant Food compost since 2016 to replace synthetic phosphate fertilizers. Plant Food is a widely available form of nutrients that are inexpensive and improve soil health.
In July 2020, Kelly faced a challenge - the nitrogen levels started dropping which would have affected the yield, so instead of applying artificial fertilizer, he turned to the natural solution Rhizolizer. Rhizolizer is a probiotic soil amendment with high density of fungal and bacterial microbes which stimulate plant growth and nutrient uptake.
The success story and the spillover effect
Kelly Garrett has been managing the farm in the last 22 years and the shift towards climate smart farming has almost doubled the yield of corn in 2019 compared to 2000, resulting in the winning of the state corn yield contest for 4 years in a row, and in 2019 Garrett farm got second place in the national contest.
The success of Garrett farm and their win-win-win solution in terms of increased carbon sequestration, yield and cost savings has raised the interest of other farmers who started applying Plant Food. Furthermore, Kelly joined forces with 5 other high yield farmers to start XtremeAg.farm with the mission to help farmers around the country to improve soil carbon sequestration and soil health, while creating jobs and saving farmers money.
The project supports 6 out of the 17 SDGs. Increasing carbon levels in the soil through natural solutions, such as compost, and fungal and bacterial microbes, results in healthier soils, higher yields, and lower costs.