The Soil Revolution Conference2022 Conference

Dr. Lundgren is an agroecologist, Director ECDYSIS Foundation, and CEO for Blue Dasher Farm. Lundgren’s research and education programs are helping applied science evolve in ways that foster the movement in regenerative agriculture.

After eleven years working for the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Brookings, South Dakota, Dr. Lundgren started his own research farm to address the lack of connection between agricultural science and the end user: farmers and ranchers.

His goal is to redesign agroecosystems to be more resilient and produce healthier food profitably by increasing biodiversity and reducing disturbance to farmland.

Daniel Mays runs Frith Farm in southern Maine, where he has been growing vegetables commercially using no-till methods since 2011. His Waldorf education and Quaker upbringing shape his relationship to land and community, and he holds a master’s degree in environmental engineering.

Daniel is author of The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm, and shares his holistic approach to agriculture and his farm's human-scale regenerative growing methods at workshops and events across the country.

Bob Quinn was raised on a 2,400 acre family operated wheat and cattle ranch south east of Big Sandy, Montana. After finishing a PhD in plant biochemistry and returning to his family’s farm in Montana, Bob started experimenting with organic wheat. In 1986, through his business Montana Flour & Grains, he introduced an ancient grain similar to durum wheat. This grain was grown only organically and marketed under his own brand name, Kamut, and now over 4500 different Kamut brand products are being marketed throughout the world providing a new crop for over 250 organic farmers in Montana, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Bob has been active in promoting organic and sustainable agriculture, locally produced food and fuel as well as promoting the idea that food should be our medicine and medicine should be our food. He has written a book “Grain by Grain” with his co-author, Liz Carlisle, which summarizes his philosophy of the tie between agriculture, food and health.

Session Description

This is my story of how introducing cover crops to our operation is helping move us toward a sustainable system both on the land and economically. It is a work in progress, things are always changing, but our goal remains the same: Sustainability.

About Jim

Jim and his wife Charlene farm and ranch in Northeast Colorado and Western Nebraska. Jim is a third-generation farmer to operate his farm. On the dryland acres they raise wheat, corn, millet and pinto beans and raise wheat corn and beans on the irrigated acres. They are experimenting with incorporating multi species cover crops in their rotations to supplement grazing for their cow/calf operation. Jim and Charlene also operate Dolezal certified seed and work with Arrow Seed selling forages, grass mixtures, pollinators and cover crop seed.

Session Description

Kevin will cover the evolution of his family’s farm from rundown ground with 1% organic matter to verdant fields with 6% organic matter. He will discuss the aggressive tactics he and his family took to add organic matter back to the soil quickly, as well as the setbacks, the successes and how valuing organic matter and soil health can work to increase the resiliency of an operation.

About Kevin & Keri

Kevin and Keri Schilthuis and family farm almost 200 acres of certified organic irrigated farmland. They have built soil organic matter from 1% to 6% and doubled cation exchange capacity. Kevin hails from northern Wyoming where he and his family of six homesteaded 80 acres of unwanted farmland in 2007. A career combining agriculture and construction, spanning several continents, has provided a problem-solving mentality to enable an interesting soil health program that encourages land owners to responsibly mineralize the soil by treating it as a bank account below their feet.

Session Description

Elizabeth will run a water infiltration test on two different local soils. Using Valmont cobbly clay samples from two neighboring vegetable gardens with different tillage regimens, she will demonstrate how rainfall infiltrates at different rates into soil, depending on how that soil has been managed.

About Elizabeth

Elizabeth Black is a 35-year Boulder resident, living in North Boulder on an acre with irrigation rights to the Silver Lake Ditch. She works as an artist painting landscapes and has a very small U-cut Christmas tree farm and veggie stand with her husband Chris Brown. She has a lot of experience organizing events and people, most notably the 1997 Crestview West Annexation of 50 of her neighbors because of polluted well water, and the 2009 Ditch Project , about the irrigation ditches in and round the City of Boulder. She is very concerned about Climate Change, and has been promoting soil carbon sequestration as a mitigating strategy for several years. As she has learned more about Front Range agriculture and soils, she has decided that her best strategy is to give tools to land stewards, so they can figure out how they can get their soil in the best shape possible, to withstand the droughts and floods ahead, and to draw down atmospheric CO2. So, she has organized a Citizen Science Soil Health Project, to help growers prove they are improving their soil.