Dear Dairy Producer,

The U.S. dairy community is collaborating on an important research initiative, the Dairy Soil and Water Regeneration project (DSWR), a six-year research initiative across 5 major dairy regions that is supported by a $10 million Foundation for Food and Agriculture (FFAR) grant.   

The overall project is designed to provide measurement-based assessments of a dairy farm's greenhouse gas footprint for feed production.  This work will help deliver foundational data to fill current research gaps, assist in the sharing of best practice soil health management systems and support potential new market opportunities related to carbon, water quality and soil health.

One goal of the project is to perform a baseline assessment to quantify the state of soil carbon stocks and soil health on forage fields that regularly receive manure and have had a range of tillage and management practices used. In this task, soil health indicators and soil carbon stocks will be quantified to provide insight into soil water movement, carbon cycling/storage, and nutrient cycling. 

In New York, partnering organizations supporting this effort include Cornell University, Dairy Management Inc., and the American Dairy Association, North East. 

If you are willing to take part, the time commitment would be relatively small. We will contact you by phone for a 5-10 minute discussion to better understand your management practices and gauge how many fields might fit our criteria for selection. 

To sample your soil, a Soil Health Institute representative will visit your farm between May 23 to June 10. 2022 (exact day will be communicated to you before we sample). Once on site, the scientist would need a contact to confirm the correct fields for sampling, identify gates or access points, and gain an understanding of any protocols that should be followed on the farm. All samples will be taken by hand with no large equipment in the fields, ensuring sampling is non-destructive to crop progress.

The Soil Heath Institute will provide participants with an assessment of soil health and soil carbon stocks approximately 6 months after sampling. Furthermore, an aggregated report of soil health and carbon stocks from the New York region will be shared with you that shows how well your soil health and carbon stocks compare to others in the region. Participants in this sampling study will not be identified, and individual data collected as part of this effort will remain confidential.   

If you are willing to take part in this important initiative, and/or have questions regarding the sampling or the project, please contact Mara Cloutier, Project Scientist at Soil Health Institute. She can be reached at mcloutier@soilhealthinstitute.org or by phone at (828) 708-3490.