Healthy Soils Compost Spread
We are very excited this year to have applied for and been approved to be part of a matching grant program from the state called the Healthy Soils Initiative (https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/healthysoils/). It is a program that was inspired by the research done by the Marin Carbon Project. The research showed that compost application on rangelands in combination with grazing can turn California rangelands into a net carbon sink. Our project has us spreading about 800 yards of compost across 53 acres at Sonoma Mountain Institute each year for the next 3 years. There are also several exclosure plots where compost was not spread and we have taken extensive soil samples from both the treatment and exclosure plots to compare the results of the program. We are also excited that we are a demonstration site for the research and so over the next three years every year we will be doing a chore that talks about our results and lessons learned with the community. We hope that the treatments overall will improve the soil health at Sonoma Mountain Institute and if for some reason they do not we have the monitoring protocols in place to demonstrate that as well. Either way we will learn quite a bit.
