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Episode 1156 of Bitcoin And . . . is LIVE!

Topics for today:

• Life Raft grazing system
• Soil health as foundation
• Biochar, seeds, compost tea
• Fertility wake
• John Kempf grazing critique

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[00:00:02] Unknown:

Good morning.   This is the Bitcoin and podcast. I'm your host,   David Bennett.   We're going to do Cathedral   part four   today,   and I'm subtitling it Life Raft   for reasons that you will   come to understand.   If you have not heard   or   read the write ups that I've done on cathedrals one through three,   I will give all of the URLs in the show notes for today's show so you can kinda catch up.   But   what cathedral is is   a silvopasture   system   that I am outlining   here on the cathedral series   to hopefully   get people excited about what can be done   from just a standpoint of just using nature as technology   because that that's essentially what we're doing here. We're not we're we're we will have technology inside the cathedral system. Yes. There will be computers. Yes. There will be automation. Yes. There will be so a solar panel or two that even   is roving around, and there there will be drones. There will be there will be, like,   technology the way that you see technology.  

The cathedral is a marriage   of   the technology that humans have built   and the technology of God   or nature or the universe, whatever whatever it is that doesn't offend you.   Personally, I'm looking at it at it as the technology of God,   which far surpasses any technology that we've been able to build because fusion   energy has been going on since the birth of the universe and we still haven't cracked that nut   so if you're thinking that somehow or another we have better technology than God   you'd be wrong. I'm just I mean, I'm just I'm just saying.   So let me recap   what we talked about   in cathedral three.  

We were talking about the grazing alleys. Alright. So we've got we've got tree lanes. We've got 23 of them internal in the cathedral system.   And then there are lanes of grays in between each tree lane. So, you can think of it as an empty space that is a long corridor that is bordered on both sides   by a wall of trees.   A wall and I I call it a wall because the animals cannot penetrate those tree lines,   which we talked about in Cathedral three. That that comes out of the out of the hedgerows.   So the   the grazing lanes   is   exactly that. It's grazed. Four cattle,   four possibly pastured hogs, if you wanna go that route,   four chickens,   llamas,   alpacas.  

What else would we get?   There's all kinds of stuff that you could put out there, but this system, especially the life raft that we will be talking about today,   is going to consist primarily   of ruminants   and chickens.   And they are just in the grazing lanes. They are not inside the tree canopies,   inside the tree lanes on either side of the grazing lanes.   That's what a silvopasture   is. It is pasture,   or for lack of a better term, graze,   and trees.   And it's a   oak savanna   mimic.   What that means is that it mimics the oak savannas   of the Great Plains before we cut down all the oak trees to to   farm commodities from fence row to fence row,   which really started in the nineteen   seventies,   specifically   after 1973.  

Then   there's the the   there's also the the Great Savannahs of Africa.   And these  

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systems   create the most abundance  

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of any system   that there is.   And I know that you'd be going, Well, they don't produce grain unless you form it. That's yes, there's an abundance there. Well, they don't make cotton. Yes. There's an abundance there.   This is about really about food production.   Right? And, again, you'll go, well, grain. Well, I'm talking animal protein.   The amount of animals   and the sheer   tonnage of meat production   available from an oak savanna   just decimates   any other system that we've been able to put together.   So a silvopasture   is a human managed,   human built   mimic   of an oak savanna.  

And, again,   a lot of the particulars, if you have if you're just tuning in,   you gotta go listen to cathedrals one through three it's about three hours long at this point and   this is gonna be a long series because this system   has a lot of it's got a lot of pieces and parts that need descriptions   So, the grazing lane in between the two tree rows is 150   foot wide.   That's   five passes with a 35 foot   combine header. Right? A combine is   how we harvest grain and corn and all kinds of stuff and cotton and whatnot like that. And the header is at the front of the tractor, and it's that big bar that goes across the bottom   portion   of the tractor. And it's got the cutting head and the collection head, and it's   it combines cutting and collecting and all kinds that's one of the reasons why the whole system is called the combine.  

So,   with 30 feet   width of a combine header, you can make five passes   around Cathedral's   grazing lanes   if you're not grazing,   if you're farming. That's one of the things that makes Cathedral flexible   is that I've designed it to where you can either graze it or you can do something called alley cropping, which means that you can raise a crop of wheat or cotton or whatever it is that that you want, possibly even corn, although   I'm not I'm not a huge fan of corn because of the water consumption.   But be that as it may, you may love corn.   You can grow the shit out of it because you'll have around 640,   620   acres to work with inside   the cathedral system because that's how much grazing   or alley cropping   lane   that you have. And that's quite that's quite a bit of quite a bit of acres. It really is. But we're   cathedral in my mind is really a grays system   and not an alley cropping system.  

So I want to focus on the grazing issue.   So, again,   we put the animals in   either the east side or the west side.   It it doesn't matter. The tree lanes go north to south, so it captures as much sunlight as you possibly can. And, again,   this is a model.   And models, when they, you know, like any battle plan,   pretty much falls apart when it goes into and it actually gets start started to get shot at in in an actual battle. And another way to look at it is Mike Tyson when he says everybody's got a plan until you get punched in the face. But you gotta have a plan.   Even if you do get punched in the face, you still need to have a plan, and this   is the model that that I'm suggesting.  

It will be the case that if you try to put this in certain places, you won't be able to really go,   you know, to assure that the tree lanes will run north to south   so that you can collect east west light.   There will be issues,   and that is up to the imagination of the implement the person implementing   this system   on, say,   more more of a hilly   or more   contoury   kind of landscape   because you'll have to follow you'll you can't do you really shouldn't be doing straight anything   when you've got contours.   That can cause problems.   That'll come in a in a later show when we start talking about how to manipulate the system   on more of a hill or contour like landscape. But for now, just think flat.  



[00:08:31] Unknown:

Think square.   So  

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we've got   enough acreage in grays. We've got about 600 and let's say six thirty acres   to work with in just grays.   So the animals go   in to the system and they go through the maze   in between the tree lanes all the way to the other side where they exit about a year later.   Okay. So   this is   this is the way that this system   is supposed to work.   Again, everybody's got a plan till you get punched in the face. But for now, we're not getting punched in the face, so we can we can dream.   The tree lanes   provide   a lot of animal fodder   along with   the hedgerows that the cows should have access to   for browse.  

And all of that combined with the grays that's on the ground, the grasses, the forbs, the legumes,   should be enough that by the time the animals escape the other side,   the animals to be harvested   will be of a weight   that   can be harvested without losing money.   Now   let's see here. Hold on for a sec.   That's right. And then and then in last week's episode, we talked about   fencing and GPS collars   and the daily   movement   of the cattle or the the animals that are going to be in the grazing lanes. And that's sort of where we we left it off.   But I want to expand on the cattle, which are and and I I had explained in last week's episode,   cattle are followed by chickens.  

I wanna really start pulling that particular system   apart.   So what   what are we getting out of this grays?   You know, is it just is it just animals? Is it just   being able to pull, you know, thousands of pounds of meat off of this thing at the end of the year for sale? Is it about thousands of pounds of chickens,   thousands of pounds of hens,   you know, thousands of pounds of eggs while you're doing all this? Is it is it just the food production?   That's part of it, but no. It's not just the food production. Because if it was just about the food production,   then we're not really concerned about the most important thing in this system,   in all natural systems, in a forest system, in a farm, on a ranch,   in your backyard.  

If you've decided that you need to, get rid of the grass in your front yard and put in a vegetable garden, then it's just as important there too. It's important everywhere there's dirt.   And that is   soil health.   I can talk all day long about   systems and types of trees and types of animals that I can put above the ground.   And none of it matters   unless we're really thinking about what's   below   ground   level.   That would be the soil.   The  

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the the living   skin   of the world  

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that we call it the soil horizon.   And I'm I'm we could go deeper to that, but we don't we really don't have to. We're   we're gonna be talking about when I say soil, I just want you to think about anywhere between   right right where the soil meets the air   and down below, let's say, for our purposes here,   three feet   three feet down that that that's all I'm asking you to think about yes we can go lower   depending on where you are but right let's just think three feet if you can get down that far there are people that live on limestone   slabs   of whose name I will not mention right now,   lives on limestone slabs and has maybe four inches of of actual soil. And my heart goes out to people like that because   clearly   that that's an issue. But in West Texas,   you don't get that.  

In Eastern Washington,   do you know there's there's places in Eastern Washington that have 34 foot of topsoil?   And that's that's not an exaggeration.   There are actually places that it goes down to 55 to 60 foot   of topsoil.   So like real honest to God soil soil, not,   you know, half rock, not, you know, ground up caliche. I'm talking soil horizon.   Anywhere between 2560   feet is not uncommon   in Eastern Washington, the Palouse region of The United States. It is it's insane   how much soil there is up here. But   we're we're really only gonna worry about the the first three feet.   Now   the amount   of time that I've spent   talking about soil health   on this show   is kind of makes people wonder, well, why is it a Bitcoin show?  

It's Bitcoin and because there's other things that exist. And I believe that Bitcoin enables us to be able to think larger than what we've been able to think.   That people haven't wasted their time   really charging their imaginations up because they know, well, there's not enough money in the world to get that done. I think we're at a point in time, a point in history where that's about to change   for the common person.   I think that Bitcoin enables   something like Cathedral,   as big as it is, as clearly you know,   even though it's a thousand year project   that is supposed to go on for a lot a lot longer than a thousand years. And, no, not everything in cathedral would be built in the first year. It's impossible.  

This is building of a cathedral. It takes time. It takes it is a multi generational build.   And that needs to always be remembered upfront with all of these episodes of cathedral.   This is not something that we just have a construction crew run out to this thousand acre plot of land and just plant all the trees at once.   It'd be nice. It'd be cool, but   that's the that's the building management portion of the cathedral series, and we're not there yet. Alright. So but just understand   that what we really have to look at when we begin this project   is the health of the soil.  

And since it is the case   that this project,   I kind of want   I would really want the first iteration of Cathedral to be built on   a blown out hayfield where the soil is damn near dead,   just to prove a freaking point,   or a   a commodity cotton field that's been so poorly managed with chemistry,   herbicides, pesticides that there's it's just a barren moonscape, and there's not a single bacteria   anywhere in that zone, bitch.   Just to prove a point.   But   let's   kinda back it up a little bit and talk about the soil health.   It's critical to understand   that ruminant animals   and grasses   co evolved with each other   over   well over a 100,000,000.  

The grasses that you see today   were completely unlike any of the grasses or or or   I don't even wanna call them grasses a hundred million years ago. God only knows what they actually look like.   But one thing is for certain,   ruminants were built to eat grass,   and they depend on that grass to live,   breathe,   reproduce,   and grasses in turn   absolutely 100%   depend   on being grazed.   Otherwise, they will die.   One, the ruminant without the grass dies, the grass without the ruminant dies, and we've done everything we can to take ruminants off of grass. And we are paying the price.   Because those ruminants,   not only do they help the grass by grazing it physically,   they're pooping and urinating,   and that   amends the soil   year over year over year over year.  

In the Great Plains   Of The United States,   descriptions of grass coming up to shoulder level,   anywhere between knee and shoulder level of a man on a full grown horse   pretty much permeates   the diaries of people like Lewis and Clark who came who I think they started in Saint Louis, and they found the Northwest Passage all the way up into   the Pacific Northwest.   Right? And they described it all the time.   Just   huge sways of grass. And then later on when we started farming,   the first farm started being put out in the Great Plains, people were talking about   soil that looked like coal. It was so black, except it was loose and friable. It would fall apart in your hands. It wouldn't it wouldn't cake together. It it refused to compact, and   torrential rains could hit it and instead of running off, it would run down into the soil and just be gone in an instant. And we don't have that anymore   because we've done everything   we can   to divorce the ruminant   from the grass. This is a terrible mistake. It is a terrible, terrible, terrible  

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mistake. So what I'm proposing  

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in the context of the cathedral system   is a subsystem called life raft.  

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Think of a boat.   And now think of the grazing lanes   as   the canal that the boat   is going down.  

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Not a river, not not not rapids. We're not doing class five here. We're to think more of like the canals in the Panama Canal   where there are no rapids that was purposely designed   to to take cargo ships that are not gonna be they're not gonna be doing rapids. They need still water, and they need it very, very deep.   And they move very, very slowly   through the Panama Canal system.   Same thing here   with the life raft system.   But   when we talk about what the life raft is, we really need to talk about how it's going to boost the soil health.   Because without soil health,   you're not going   to get really high quality, nutritious grass and forbes and legumes. And you're not gonna have support for all the critters that live in the soil, like earthworms and dung beetles. And and these things help till the soil without actually tilling the soil   with a mechanical tiller.  

You know, we've got arthropods and little critters and big critters and all kinds of stuff, and they dig through the soil.   And their their their whole job is to keep   air and water moving through the soil by their tunnels and their burrows and   and all the rest of the things that they bring to the table.   So cattle   and their manure and their urine   help with that.   Chickens,   with their scratching and their own pooping and their shedding of feathers,   help all that.   It's it's   it's a technology   that we don't really appreciate   because I think we grew up being taught that farmers were dumb   and ranchers were just dumb And they were all hayseeds and rednecks and hicks.  

And if you've met enough farmers   and enough ranchers,   you realize they're not hayseeds and hicks.   They're actually really, really tuned in people, man.   But let's get back to let's get back to this whole thing with Cathedral and the life raft and soil health boosting because the life raft is designed   to   as it passes over   a particular section of grays,   by the time it passes that point,   there is way more nutrition in the soil than there was. There's way more potential   nutrition in the soil than there was.   And the more times that the life raft passes that same point   on a year over year basis,   then we'll be able to grow more grass and more forbes and more legumes, and we'll be able to put more cattle on the life raft. We'll be able to actually put more chickens   on the life raft. And every time this thing cruises down the grazing lanes,   it's got more food every year.  

That's the whole point. That's why it's called a life raft.   It's not about rescuing   the animals.   It the animals actually are a raft, and everywhere they go, they leave behind life. It's a context.   It's a philosophy   that is important in the context of each one of these grazing lanes.   Because think of it this way.   Soil microbes   exist in the soil.   They happen to be very much related to the soil to the microbes that are in a ruminant's gut.   Why why why would that be?   Well,   during a let's say let's think of it like, grass let's just think of the great of a grazing lane in in Cathedral and it rains.   And a raindrop hits just was able to hit right right on the soil   right between   all the grass plants. And you really want grass to the point that that a raindrop never really hits the soil. But at one point or another,   one of these things is going to is going to find its way to bare soil.  

You want is you want as thick of a carpet as you can get   to armor the soil, to keep it intact, to make sure it doesn't run away.   But at one point or another, yeah, you're you're gonna end up with some some water hitting dirt, and it's gonna splash up, and it's gonna take a whole bunch of different microbes and   archaebacteria   and and and regular bacteria and   all kinds of stuff. And it's gonna splash the leaves of the grass. And who comes through but our friendly neighborhood cow   who eats that grass?   And they're in so far doing, they're eating the the soil microbes that have been splashed up on those blades of grass.   And then it then it gets into the to the cattle's rumen,   right, to the cow's rumen,   where it is moist,   it is warm,   and it is of an appropriate   pH.  

And and   it's got all kinds of other food   to chew on because the cow is constantly eating grasses, constantly moving   carbon   carboniferous   and nitrogen containing   compounds through its gut in the form of grass and legumes and forms forbs.   So what does the bacteria do here?   It has sex,   and a lot of it.   And it produces   little bitty baby microbes,   like billions of them, trillions.   Like, what was what was a few thousand microbes can easily become a few billion microbes by the time that it exits the animal   through its rear end in the form of a cow pat,   which falls where?  

Right back on the soil.   So what started as a few thousand or maybe a few 100,000 microbes is now   numbering in the billions. And where do they go?   They dive down into the soil.   So the ruminant itself is actually   a a bioreactor,   and its whole job is to amplify   soil microbiology.   Well, it's not its whole job. Its other job is to mow the grass,   but they they work in conjunction with each other.   In our case right here for soil health,   we really are concentrating   on the amount of microbial   amplification   that is going on.   Can we boost that?  

Is there a way that we can affect   what kinds of microbes? Maybe we've got a soil.   Maybe we find out so much about soil microbiology   of which we don't know a whole lot about because we it's like we know more about space than we know know about the oceans. Well, we know a lot more about the oceans than we do about our soil as to what kind of critters are in there.   That's I this is again,   I'm not being hyperbolic.   We know less about soil than we do about oceans, which is a lot less than we do about space.   And God only knows what we don't know about. But as far as I can tell, we know almost diddly squat about soil.  

So can we what do we what if we find out? What if we learn more and we find out we're kinda missing a whole class of microorganism   here.   Is there a way that we can brew that up   and spray that on the grass   and let the cows eat that   and have those microbes   amplified?   Or   do you wanna build a whole factory with steam pipes and energy consumption   and hook to the grid and and and process managers and process engineers and then hire all these? No.   Not not not to amplify something that is that a cow can do for free.   See, this this is why   I go back to what I said earlier in the show, was that we're working with God's technology.  

And if we would read the textbook of God's technology,   we'd be able to do a whole hell of a lot more for a whole hell of a lot less   than we are. But, no. We want fake meat. So what do we do? We build a factory.   Do you   I don't even know how many megawatts of electricity some of these   fake protein,   fake meat manufacturers   take to run, but I'll bet you that their process engineers get paid a quarter million dollars a year. And I'll bet you there's more than one. And I'll bet you there's a lot more people than that that it takes to run. Why not just   raise a cow?  

The technology is already there.   All we have to do is read God's textbook and say, oh,   well, he's already answered all this.   Look, there's instructions.   There's instructions.   Holy crap, this is great. But we don't do that.   We don't do that because we've been I think it's because we've been taught.   There's a lot more to it. But I think a lot of people have been steered away from wanting to discover this because   we've been told   that a, cows are bad for the environment. That's a lie. We've been told that farmers are dumb. That's a lie. We've been told that ranchers are rednecks. That's a lie.   I mean, they're like, it's it's just it goes on and on and on. And and the more and more people lose interest and wanna be a banker or a lawyer or a doctor and such, just like Willie Nelson song,   we end up losing   not just this not is I hate what people call it. Oh, we're losing this lifestyle.  



[00:28:29] Unknown:

Screw that. I don't care about the lifestyle.   The the we're we're losing a technology   that made this planet run   for   way longer   than we've been here.   So,   again, that said,   what if we used  

[00:28:49] Unknown:

a way to discover   is there is there a depletion? Is there can we use man made technology to discover whether or not we're missing a whole class of microorganisms in the soil? And if so, can we get them back in the soil, but not by using a whole bunch of fancy chemical and and biological engineering equipment? We just use the cow. Yeah. There's there's a way to do that. That's one of the parts of the life raft, and we'll get into that.   Is there a way to introduce   large insects that have been depleted   off of places like the the the common dung beetle,   Which is critical   for for pastures.  

And yet   the way we've been managing all this stuff by pulling all these animals off of pastures, we've lost all this.   We've lost all this.   It   really it really does boil down to carbon.   I mean, it's yes. It's the biology.   But if I need if I need to really focus in on what's really missing,   Is it is it a class of microbes? Well, yeah. There's classes of microbes that are not there that probably should be. Is it is it the insects? Yeah. There's a lot of earthworms that should be in the plains of West Texas that are no longer there. Is it the dung beetle? Damn Skippy.   But we we need to start looking at what's the root cause.  

What's the root cause? We get into these places that are turning into deserts because of chemical and conventional agriculture   and poor ranching   management practices,   what are we really missing?   Carbon.   We're really missing   carbon,   and we need to put carbon back. And not because we're all gonna die because of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I don't care.   That's   I I everybody is way, way,   way too over the top on that. And and this is coming from somebody who was   global cooling is gonna kill us. And then the ozone layer depletion was gonna kill us. And then we went into global warming was gonna kill us. And now we're just they're just saying fricking climate change. Well,   welcome to the way the Earth works. Climate change happens.  

And causing people to be afraid of it and and making them think that there's something that we can do about it   is simply to pad   and line your own pockets with other people's money.   It's it's it's fear marketing. That's all that is. But that does not mean that we haven't lost a shit ton of carbon out of the soil. We have. And it doesn't mean   that we need to put it that we don't need to put it back because we do. We need to put the carbon back. And that's one of the things that life raft does.   So   let's talk just a little bit about carbon.   Why is it important? Because it gives it it helps gives the soil structure.  

It does more than that.   Hard carbon or what I call recalcitrant   carbon, which is basically charcoal,   And you we used to get that when when when the planes would catch on fire and and dead grasses would burn away.   Not all of it would actually burn.   It would it would char and it would basically leave behind a bunch of   well, if you've ever seen a field that's been burned, you'll see a bunch of black.   That black is almost pure carbon.   And then it rains and then that black gets   or that carbon gets put into the very top half inch of the soil.   That carbon holds   about seven times its weight in water,   chemically.  

It's like a sponge, except a sponge I can squeeze and the water will come out. Can't do that with carbon,   because the water is held chemically, and that's called adsorption.   A d as in a antiderom   anti dominant.   Right?   Adsorption.   Adsorption.   A sponge is a b as in boy, a b sorption, and that's different.   That is a physical collection of water,   and if you compress   the medium of which that water is held, the water will leave.   That's   not adsorption.   Right? So the carbon chemically holds on to seven times its weight in water.   As the the macrofauna,   the big insects, earthworms, and all the way down to the smaller stuff,   that carbon starts to get incorporated in the lower levels of the soil. So now when it rains,   we've got a whole bunch of holes because of the worms and the dung beetles and whatnot like that. So the water and air can infiltrate   And it gets down to the lower levels where it charges the carbon that's down there with water. So now roots can go deeper and in under drought conditions   can remain   hydrated   for way longer   because this   like like you can squeeze a sponge and get the water out.  

You can also put the sponge filled with water   like out on a grate in the middle of Texas   summer in   in full sunlight, and you'll come back in one hour and that thing will be dry as a bone.   If I have chemically wet carbon,   like, as a powder,   like, just ground up charcoal. And not not the kind of charcoal for your grill. We're talking just almost pure carbon.   And it's soaked in water   for, like, let's say, five hours. And then I I drain all the water off and I put a pile of wet carbon   next to the sponge   that is wet and I come back in an hour, you know what's not dry?   The pile of carbon. It's still sopping wet   because it's chemically the water is chemically held. It doesn't evaporate.  

This is critical for, like, the Great Plains. This is critical for drought stricken regions.   You need carbon in the soil. But here's the funny thing about carbon.   We shouldn't have anywhere close to the amount of carbon that there is,   and   that's a paradox.   So you'll maybe you're asking,   what what are you talking about?   What the hell are you talking about?   I mean the creation of carbon in the nuclear furnaces of suns   doesn't make sense   from a   quantum   level.   You know, from a few nuclear fusion level.   And and those two things, the quantum level and the nuclear fusion level, they kinda work together.   They they do. They they actually work together. So I'm gonna try to describe this.  

The way you get carbon   is you have to have   fusion,   nuclear   fusion.   So when the big bang happened,   we had hydrogen   and we had helium, and a lot of people are told that. But what they're what people do not tell you is that there was actually there was actually quite a bit of carbon   that was laid down at the big bang.   And people go, well, that's impossible. No. It's not. Well, first of all, here's how carbon's made. You got two helium atoms that collide   and   that forms something called beryllium.   You are very very close   to carbon 12 with beryllium eight, and beryllium eight means eight neutrons   or eight protons in the nucleus.  

Carbon 12 means 12 protons or   neutrons   in the nucleus.   But all you need is one more helium atom to combine with that beryllium   in a fusion way, and you'll get carbon 12.   But here's the problem.   Peru it's easy to get two hydro or helium atoms to collide into each other. And helium is built from two hydrogens, just so you know. So two hydrogens come together, they get married, they have a baby, it's called helium.   Two helium stem come together, they they they get married, they have a baby, it's called beryllium.   Now if you introduce a third, you'll end up with carbon.  

But the beryllium   eight, when after the fusion of two helium atoms occur,   it is so   unstable   that   one beryllium   atom exists for about one trillionth. Actually,   a fraction   of one trillionth of a second. It's something like 10 to the negative sixteen seconds.   That's like   a dot zero dot 16 zeros   and then one.   That that's how many seconds   a beryllium atom lasts for.   That's not a lot of time.   And you need beryllium to to remain   being beryllium   long enough for carbon to hit it and fuse with it in a nuclear   nuclear fusion type situation.   But at 10 to the negative sixteen seconds, fat chance   until you start talking about something called Hoyle's resonance.  

Hoyle's resonance.   All it is was there was this an astronomer named I think his name was Fred Hoyle.   Right? And he predicted   he predicted that there was going to have to be some kind of   resonance   for carbon to actually form   because we already knew at the time of Fred Hoyle's life   that beryllium didn't last very long   and that it didn't make sense that we had the the amount of carbon that we have in the universe.   Turns out his theory, the   resonance theory of the creation of carbon from Fred Hoyle   was indeed correct.   It   so happens   that if you have   anywhere close   to a beryllium atom,   a helium atom,   there is a resonance   that just happens,   and it attracts that helium to the beryllium   in a way that if that resonance wasn't there,   we would not have carbon.  

We would not in the amounts that it would take to create, you know, RNA, DNA,   protein life.   There would be no life in the universe without Hoyle's resonance.   That's how important this thing is, which is why I'm spending time on it here.   Because under any other circumstances,   we would not have the amount of carbon that we have. And that affects everything because every rock you pick up,   most of it's carbon.   Whether it's limestone,   whether it's granite,   it it I mean,   dude, pick basalt.   It doesn't matter what rock it is. If you're a geologist or if you're thinking about becoming a geologist and you don't know this,   understand that most of the material inside of any rock you find,   except if you find a rock of gold, yeah, well, congratulations.  

No. That doesn't have carbon in it. Not much, anyway. It's got gold in it. But rocks, like crystalline rocks, like quartz,   like   granite,   it's mostly carbon   and aluminum and stuff like that, but mostly carbon.   So if we if it wasn't for Hoyle's resonance,   solid mass wouldn't even be able to form, at least at least not in the way that we're used to. There would be no such thing as granite. There would be no such thing as quartz.   You kiss all this shit goodbye.   So the the other thing about this is   is that it kind of goes into quantum mechanics because   if you think about what quantum is, it's like it's a probability.  

It's like Schrodinger's   cat. Right? It's like there's a cat inside. The Schrodinger cat,   experiment is a thought experiments where there's a cat inside of a box and you can't see in it. You cannot see inside the box.   And there is a   vial   of poison that if if that glass vial gets broken, that cat is dead. And as long as the vial doesn't get broken, the cat remains alive.   And then there's some kind of   armature   that if it gets hit   by a cosmic ray,   then it will activate the armature and the armature will slam against the glass and the glass will break and the cat dies. And you put everything together inside this box and you never know whether or not the cat is alive or dead because you can't detect the   the the the cosmic,   ray coming through, the cosmic particle.  

Right?   Because you can't see it. You don't know what's happening inside the box. And the only way you'll ever be able to tell what's inside the box is if you open the box. And the minute you do that, you do the following.   You do what's called collapse the probability wave.   There's a probability   that cat is either there's half a chance or let's see. There's 50% chance the cat's dead and 50% chance that the cat's alive.   And as long as you keep that box closed,   that probability rotates. It's either alive or it's dead at the exact same time. It's like it lives between two different states.   And then you open the box, you collapse a probability wave. You you discover whether or not the cat is alive or dead.  

That that's the Schrodinger's cat model. Same thing with beryllium.   At any given time, it could decay back into hydrogen within that 10 to the negative sixteen second window that you have that beryllium is still, you know, together.   At any point in that time,   it could already have decayed   or it could remain beryllium.   What collapses the probability wave in this case is Hoyle's resonance   causing another helium to collide or at least attracting it, causing a resonance where everything simpatico and dance partners start really getting into the groove with each other. And that's what happens with beryllium and another helium atom, and you end up with carbon.   So Hoyle's resonance is the thing   that collapses the probability way for the universe so that we have as much carbon   as we have.  

And, again, if we didn't have that,   we you wouldn't be listening to my voice right now. And that's a fact. You can go talk to any physicist about this, and they will corroborate me.   So if   carbon is this important   to life,   then certainly we want to have carbon   in the soil. And, yes, we do. We want a lot of it.   And here's where life raft comes in.   Now in   last   Wednesday's episode, the cathedral three, we talked about   how   the cows   are moved every morning.   And then after the cows are moved,   the chickens that are running behind the cows are moved up. Right? So the cows graze for an acre and a half, and then they get moved up. And then the chickens,   which are, like, two or three days away, and we'll explain that here in a second, they get moved up.  

Alright. So why? And that's to to break the fly cycle.   Cows will will when they poop on the ground, flies come in, they lay their eggs almost immediately. If there's any flies present and present and there always are flies present,   they lay their eggs in the poop because it's a great place to to rear their little fly children.   It takes three days for the maggots or the the fly larva   to to emerge as adults   and break out of their larval casing or their pupa or whatever you wanna call it and then fly away, and they cause problems for cattle. You can get it you can get really bad fly strike. And it's not just cattle. It's it's any animal that's out there in the field. And if you got enough flies,   you'll end up with fly strike. And this shit is awful. You don't you don't want it on your animals.  

But if you drag chickens,   so wherever the cows were three days before,   if you put chickens right there,   three like, we're   like, okay. You got cows, they poop.   And you let you you move them off and you let that area rest for a day and then two days. And on the third day,   like Jesus rising from the dead,   you put chickens on that same spot because that's the day   that the fly larvae are gonna emerge as adults. But before they get to do that, if you've got enough chickens covering it,   they're going to scratch all that cow poop and they're going to get the larvae and they're going to eat it and they're gonna convert the fat and the protein   and, you know, whatever else is in in fly larva. They're gonna convert it to eggs and meat   for free.  

And they're going to completely scratch   away   and break down all those cow pats   and get them more soil contact so that the critters, the billions and billions of of amplified my   microbiology   can start contacting the soil and then they start dropping down into the soil. And there's a whole bunch of other stuff that goes on, but that's the basic thing.   But let's look at it differently.   Let's look at these animals as being on a raft.   The cows are the bow of the boat.   The chickens are at the aft of the boat.   So let's if just keep that in your mind and it's floating.   This life raft is floating up   and down and back up and down   all the way through the maze of the grazing lanes   until it comes out to the other end. But the chickens   are never   more than three days behind the cows, and they're never closer than three days behind the cows. So if you look at the boat   as three days long, the cows are at the bow going forward   and the chickens follow-up at the very back end of the boat called aft.  

But there's more to it than that   because the boat   is on water and the bow of the boat has to blaze through that or has to cut through the water. That's why a boat hull is shaped the way that it's shaped.   But then at the   back of the boat,   once the boat once the boat is   as the boat's moving on,   you can see the wake of the boat.   So there's like really, there's the boat,   there's the water before it, and then there's the churned up water behind it.   So think of that whole system together.   Now let's go back and revisit   what happens   day after day after day   on the grazing lanes of Cathedral.  



[00:47:49] Unknown:

We've got the cows.  

[00:47:51] Unknown:

We've got the cattle herd at the front.   We got the chickens in some kind of mobile coops behind.   We've got maybe we've got fencing   between them so that, you know, we we talked about moving building a new paddock in front of the cows and then moving the cows in.   Maybe there's e collars   because well, we'll get to that here in a second.   But then so the cows move up and then you move the chickens up. And basically, you're just moving the whole boat. Right?   So there's this daily rhythm of motion,   soil work,   fertility work.   But we could do a little bit more   and add to the system instead of just moving the cows up and then moving the chickens up and essentially moving the life raft forward,   we need to prep the water before the boat.  

We we become the the keel of the or not the keel, but the is it the keel? I can't the the very front part of the boat that splits the water. We can be that.   So let's revisit the daily workflow.   Got a guy,   comes in on his four wheeler, and he's got some stuff with him. What's that stuff?  

[00:49:05] Unknown:

Biochar   and seeds.   Okay. So and we've talked a little bit about this.  

[00:49:13] Unknown:

Right before the cows move up into what's going to be their new acre, acre and a half paddock,   we define what area that we want, and let's say it's an acre and a half.   We don't build the fence. Let's just say that we don't let's say we're using e collars.   So there, we don't have labor of of building a new fence that even if it's step in post, even if it's easy, if we can get away from it, and the e collars work and keep the cows exactly where we need them to be, then let's do that.   Then all I have to do is get on my four wheeler or or my little tractor that's out there in the field, and I drag   a   broadcast   spreader behind it. And that spreader has   biochar   and maybe 90% biochar and 10% seed because I wanna, you know, make sure that I've got,   like, new forbs and and and new legumes coming in because there's there can be a problem with that.  

Well, I'll cover it. But let's just say that I wanna make sure that I've got, like, you know, I'm constantly setting,   spreading more,   seeds of forbs and and and and some other grasses   and legumes.   And it's all mixed in with that. So then   then   I have an option.   Do I spray   that entire paddock be before the cows move on there? Because at this point, the seed   and the biochar has fallen in between all the spaces of the grass that's grown up that that these cows are gonna eat.   And is like laying against the ground,   I have an option as to whether or not I wanna go through and pull a spray rig   along with a broadcast spreader of seed and biochar   and spray compost tea in a diluted form   across that same thing, which would do what? It would   and I've talked about compost tea before. You get good compost.  

You bubble it in a whole bunch of air and water in a chamber for about three days, and you're acting sort of acting like a cow.   Except you have a chance to make adjustments because you can adjust pH, you can adjust feedstock as to, like, whether you're gonna put in fish meal, are you gonna put in,   algae meal, are you gonna put in brown sugar, molasses?   Because   what you decide to feed   this bubbling mass that the compost the compost is providing   all the microbial community that you want. Fungal, bacterial,   you name it.  

And depending on what you feed it, you can adjust it to be more bacterial   or more fungal.   And a whole   raft of stuff in between.   But let's just let's just say that   I want to make a a fifty fifty mix. I want just as much fungal stuff as I want   soil micro or soil,   bacterial stuff   in my compost tea.   And I just spray that over the grass   at and the the,   biochar   and the seed mix. Because   if they if the seed germinates,   the first thing that root hair is gonna touch is it's going to be inoculated with bacteria and fungus.   And as it grows into the soil, it's going to carry all that through it.  

Most people, when when we buy seed at the store,   they do everything they can to sterilize that shit, and that's not good.   But here we have the chance to just   pump   huge,   huge amounts of biology into that system.   And every blade of grass would be coated with a very dilute solution   of compost tea that has both fungus and bacteria in it.   Especially, you know, we're we're we want soil back. We don't want, like, you know, disease causing bacteria, so we're not gonna brew that. We don't want disease causing   fungus. We so we we're not gonna be brewing that. It it all boils down to what you the compost that you start with because the compost is soil fungus. The compost is the bacteria that belongs in the soil. That that's compost. We just wanna amplify the living crap out of it. So we spray it all. Now what happens?   We move the cattle up.  

The cattle do two things.   They eat the grass   that has had a whole bunch of appropriate   soil microbiology   sprayed on it, and it goes into their rumen where it does what?   Gets amplified   like   a boss.   I mean, from a 100,000   to   100,000,000,000.   That's a lot of amplification.   So now I can use the cattle.   Not only am I going to get their meat,   not only am I going to get them to do some other stuff. Right now, they're they're performing a job for free. And that is massive amplification of microbiology.   Now that microbiology   is also soaked into the carbon. And remember what I said about carbon and its ability to adsorb water.  

It's going to also adsorb all of the microbiology,   and it's going to carry carry it with it   wherever it goes because it's sticky. It's like glue. You can think of it that way. So I spray water and bacteria   and fungus on this   biochar.   It's going to stick to it and never come off. And it's not gonna have to wait very long either because as the cows are eating the grass and amplifying my microbiology   and pooping it out in massive amounts on the other end,   their weight is stomping   all over the biochar   and the seeds.   And they're pressing the seeds and the biochar into the ground   or at least making it have really good contact with the soil.  

As those cattle move off to the next paddock,   I've done everything I need to do to prep that.   And this comes in this this should come in later, and, hopefully, I won't forget it. It's it's in my it's in my outline here, but you never know about me.   Then we've we're letting that area rest,   and it's been pooped on.   It we've got carbon in the soil now. And let let's say we put about   half a ton or like maybe 50 pounds to 100 pounds of biochar per acre,   or we could go higher than that. We put, you know, 10% of whatever that is is is new seed. Right. Which is cheap.   Cheap for an for an acre. It's not it's not this is not an expensive proposition.  

And the biochar   we make on-site, but we haven't gotten to that part of Cathedral yet. But just understand that I I don't intend to pay for the biochar.   I intend the biochar to pay for itself. And, again, that's a whole other episode.   So I've I have in that one pass,   with a small tractor,   a spray rig, and a broadcast spreader, I have receded.   I have put brand new carbon into the ground.   I have put a whole bunch of biology   all over the the thing. I had now have the cows come through. They are gonna amplify   the massive amounts of biology that I already played down. They're going to amplify it, and they're going to make sure that the carbon is inside the soil or at least in such contact with the soil that it's not gonna wash away. And then I've got a brand new seed bed that is ready to germinate   with all the biology it will ever need for its roots, and those roots are gonna carry that biology down into the soil   in one pass.  

In one   single pass.   And then using the cattle   as muscle   to dig all that into the soil. But I'm not done.   No. Not by a long shot because three days later, here comes the chickens.   What do they do?   They're going to get a hold of all of that manure, and they're going to rip it apart.   And they're going to scratch it, and they're going to get all of the fly larvae out so that we do not have fly   pressure   on the cattle.   So now they're doing their job.   And then they're putting down   extremely   high nitrogen manure because chicken manure is completely different than cow manure.   Cow manure doesn't have that much nitrogen in it.  

Chicken manure, oh my god.   It's called hot manure. And if you were to take a whole bag of it and throw it on your tomato plants, you would burn your tomato plants. It would get nitrogen burned   because there's too much nitrogen.   But as they're scratching,   they're scratching the cattle manure into the ground. They're scratching   the   biochar and the seeds   even deeper.   And you might say, well, they're probably gonna eat the seeds. Well, maybe.   Except I plan on feeding these chickens,   like, supplemental grain or, you know, we'll get into that. But, I mean, they're they're not gonna be all that excited   about anything but the fly larvae. Alright? So, yes. Will I lose seed? Yeah. I'll lose some, but I'm not gonna lose it all. I'm gonna keep enough of it. And then they're going to be scratching their own poop into the ground.  

And that high nitrogen is gonna mix with the seeds and it's gonna mix with the biochar,   which   biochar also buffers nutrients.   So there won't be a situation   where there will be a whole lot of burn even if I put a whole bunch of chickens down.   That's the back end of the raft.   Then as the raft moves on, we've got the wake.   It's what's left in the wake. It's all this torn up manure. It's all these flies that have got eaten. It's all this high nitrogen manure from the chickens. It's all this   this biology   laden   cow turds that have been ripped apart in the field. It's gonna it's literally going to look like a wake in the at the back end of a boat at full speed.  



[00:59:18] Unknown:

But then I'll do something else.   After the chickens are moved,   I'll get back on my tractor,   and I'll probably put down even more carbon and even more biology with a spray rig and spray spray spread or a  

[00:59:33] Unknown:

broadcast spreader.   I probably won't put seeds in there because I can't guarantee that the seed gets seed soil contact, which is critical, so I think that would be a waste of seed.   That's the essence of the life raft.   That it's a raft. And as it moves   through the grazing lanes,   what it leaves behind   is way more fertile than what happened before it even though all the grass has been mowed   to the ground,   which is a whole other thing, but I don't wanna get into that one right now.   So that's sort of the way life raft works.   Now   this life raft happens to be a 150   foot wide   and about,   you know,   an acre and a half,   though that'd be be about, like, four acres long.  

So it's a it's a big raft. Right? Because I gotta have cattle   from   hedgerow to hedgerow   and I've got to have chickens from hedgerow   to hedgerow.   But as the raft moves through the cathedral system, it takes about   three hundred and sixty five days to get to the other end.   So   does that mean now this is where things change a little bit.   Remember all the seed that we've plugged into the ground?   Let's let's say this is let's say that it's mid spring and we've got no more issues with frost.   The seed that we've laid down, it's going to germinate between seven and fourteen days   and it's going to start growing new plants   unless some kind of disaster happens.  

Now,   what happens if I instead of choosing seeds   that are only for some new grasses and new forbs   and new legumes,   what if I also drop   cover crop seed?   Ah, what happens then? Oh, shit.   Okay.   Some daikon radish   or what's also known as tillage radish,   hairy vetch,   some annual rye grass. You don't want you don't want perennial rye. Don't don't even think about it. It's you don't want it, you don't want it, you don't want it. But annual rye,   oats,   that's an annual plant that's really good.   Maybe I do a 15 way   cover crop   at the bow of the boat, at the bow of the life raft.  

In seven to fourteen days,   not only will the grasses be growing and the forbs be growing and legumes be growing, I will have an entire   cover crop. You know what I could do with that?   After it becomes fully grown in about thirty days?   I could probably put a whole other life raft behind it.   I could probably put a whole other set of cows and a whole other set of chickens   back at the front of the system   and have a whole other   crop of animals come through and feed   on   the seeds or the cover crop that was laid down by the cows that came before it. See how this is starting to work?   And all the time that those plants are alive in the field, they are pumping   carbon from the   atmosphere into the soil, adding to the carbon bank that I've already laid down with the biochar.  

If I do the exact same thing, if I'm if I'm in a place where I can   let's say I can do this let's say I'm in West Texas.   Man, I mean, I can grow   I can grow  

[01:03:09] Unknown:

stuff  

[01:03:11] Unknown:

from let's see. When it's like it gets really bad in,   let's say, late October,   let's say everything shuts down. Photosynthesis   just shuts down. It's too damn cold to grow.   And let's say January, February, March, January, March, February, March. Okay. So March.   So I have April,   May, June, July, August, September, October.   Okay. So seven months.   I'm actually gonna just say eight months. So let's say in West Texas, I know I've got eight months of growing season.   If it takes thirty days   for the life raft to move or for thirty days from the time the life life raft moved off of its spot   to where a full crop of cover crop that can be used as grays, and it can,   comes up,   then it's a calculation of how much how much poundage is there and how many cattle that that can support. That's just a mathematic problem. But I could run another set of cows and chickens behind it, and I would do the exact same thing. I would put down more biochar, I would put down more cover crop seeds, and I would put down more biology,   let the cows come in, stomp it all down, eat it all down, press all the seeds, and blah blah blah and then let the chickens come through, rinse and repeat. And guess what? Thirty days later,   probably set for another set of cattle to come through. And all this time, the grass and the forbs and the legumes,   they're probably they're they're   it's not that they're being outcompeted by the the seeds that I'm putting down.  

It's that there's so much forage that the grasses would have time to recover   while the cows are eating all kinds of other crap.   And it's just life raft after life raft after life raft after life raft. So instead of doing it one time per year,   I'm doing it   seven times per year.   Let's be conservative.   Let's say I can only do it five I can only run five herds of cattle and chicken   before   photosynthesis shuts down for the year.   What's that worth?   On the same piece of land?   Just because I'm trying to figure out, well, if these cows weigh this much and they and they're gonna be   mob grazing and they're gonna be shoulder to shoulder and they're gonna be stomping all over thing, then and and I know this that that seeds, to be able to germinate properly, need good biology and good soil soil seed contact.  



[01:05:41] Unknown:

This is just a way to integrate those two things.  

[01:05:45] Unknown:

So now I've got life raft after life raft after life raft after life raft moving through the river of the grazing lanes inside Cathedral.   The cattle have hooves. They're seed stompers.   They're biomass consumers. The chickens, they break the fly cycle.   They mix fertilizer.   Compost tea is just this huge   microbial   wake in  

[01:06:09] Unknown:

as the boat moves through.   It's  

[01:06:13] Unknown:

this is the way that I think of   God's technology.   Just how do you sequence them? In what   how do we make them the most appropriate use   of each one of these critters' jobs, and what can we do ourselves   as a third critter   to add and enhance   depleted soil?   This is it.   This is the way to do it.   It's not the only way to do it, but in my mind, dude, this this works.   Does it again, all battle plans are met with resistance on the battlefield.   Everybody's got a plan till you get punched in the face. I get it.   But we gotta have a plan.   We gotta have something to be able to adjust   when   the fist meets the face,   when the battle plan meets the battlefield.  

We gotta have something.   This, in my mind, works.   Would you'd have to adjust seed mixes,   maybe put on too much compost tea, maybe maybe we find out that really upset the stomachs of the of the cattle,   maybe we need to dilute it even more, or maybe we don't even spray it at the beginning at all.   Maybe we find out that the cows really don't want that much. They they're really not gonna do that kind of job. Fine.   Then we don't we put the biochar and we put the seed on. We let the cattle stop it. We let the chickens come through. And after the chickens are done, that's when we spray with biochar, but it can all be done   within probably a four hour period.  

The the spreading of the seed, the spreading of the biochar, the movement of the cattle, the movement of the chickens, and then the spreading   of the   compost tea.   I don't see that taking more than four hours every single day.   It's I mean, is it labor? Yeah.   I'm sorry.   Farms and and ranches are labor. I I don't get this. It's just too much work. Well, what else you got to do?   I mean, what shit, man.   Don't you wanna be outside? Okay. Look. A lot of people don't wanna be outside. But for those people who wanna be outside,   this is honestly this would be like   what what what what is what's the guy say in aliens?  

Day in the Corps is like a day on the farm, every meal a banquet, every paycheck a fortune, you know, that kind of shit. You know, if if it's something that you don't want, then you're you've stopped listening to the to these episodes. That's that's okay. I'm just saying   labor's involved.   This is not that much labor, and you're doing   you're having huge,   mammoth leverage   against depleted soils with life raft.   It makes sense,   and it's going to continue to make sense.   Because right now,   I wanna read you   this piece from John Kempf in Acres USA.   And it's called   the take half,   leave half fallacy.  

Now, Jon Kemp before we begin on this one,   Jon Kempf wrote this July 1. So he he just wrote this.   He's an Amish feller.   I think he lives in Ohio or Pennsylvania.   He is this he's the founder and president of Advancing Agro   no. Hold on. Advancing   Ecoagriculture.   Advancing Ecoagriculture   is I think that's AEA.   Advancing   Ecoagriculture,   I think, is the name of it. He's one of my favorite favorite all time favorite podcast to listen to.   It's called Regenerative Agriculture podcast with Jon Kempf, k e m p f.   He's highly regarded   in regenerative agriculture, if you catch the tongue in cheek meaning of that one.  

But he has a tendency to be able to piss people straight off   because the things that he thinks of is different   than the way   people that are in farm and ranch have been thinking about things. And the take half, leave half fallacy   is gonna be something that really pisses   grazers,   ranchers,   and other folks that are interested in in pasture health is gonna piss them straight off.   So let's get into it from John Kemp.   A group of dairy and beef producers approached me recently and said, John, we have a problem.   We want to improve our soil health, but despite implementing the best intensive rotational grazing practices   for twenty or thirty years,   we've made no progress in improving our soil organic matter. In fact, we've gone backwards.  

I started asking around,   and it turns out this is a common phenomenon.   There are hundreds of operations that have this challenge, so I started digging into grazing management systems more deeply than I have in the past.   And I came to the conclusion that we have a foundational   failure in understanding how different types of plants   move sugars around   and how that should translate   into effective management.   This conversation is focused around forage production,   but it is equally true with how we're growing annual vegetable crops or annual grain crops or even tree   fruit. We need to really understand how different plants move sugars around at different life stages because that determines the plant's   optimal expression.  

Take half, leave half?   The prevailing idea in grazing management is that to build soil,   we need to take half of the forage and leave   half of the forage. While occasionally, but not on a regular basis,   grazing aggressively and removing the majority of the forage.   But there isn't a lot of foundational guidance to describe why to do this.   Why and when should we graze more aggressively?   Why and when should we leave half of the forage behind?   To help answer these questions, we need to understand   how different types of plants partition carbohydrates.   First,   consider a grass plant.  

A clump of grass has a very large fibrous root system.   These large root systems are what grasses are celebrated for. A tremendous amount of root biomass they have.   A single rye plant, an annual grass,   can have a root system that is more than a mile in length.   But when a grass plant produces sugar through photosynthesis,   where does it send those sugars?   The numbers I'm going to present are variable based on different soil conditions, grass species, and field conditions.   They will, of course, differ. They are not hard and fast numbers, but directionally,   they're correct.  

Where the plant sends sugars changes based on the stage of plant growth.   I'm going to focus on the stage of plant growth that is just before the bloom stage, at the end of the vegetative growth stage, and before the reproductive stage.   During the reproductive stage, all plants devote most of the sugar they produce toward seed production.   There are four different sinks for the sugars produced during photosynthesis.   Two of these are above ground,   the vegetative biomass and reproduction   and two are below ground   the root biomass   and the root exudates.  

This applies to any type of plant.   For a grass plant that is just approaching the bloom period,   the portion of sugars the plant seeds to produce above ground vegetative biomass   is roughly 40%   and the amount allocated toward reproduction is roughly 10%.   About 45%   of the total sugar energy will go to root biomass   and 5% will be dedicated to root exudates.   The important point here is that a grass plant stores its surplus energy primarily in its roots,   not in root exudates.   This is why these grass plants have such huge root systems.   Now, we've been told that the root system gets pruned proportionally   to the top of the plant being removed.  

That grazing or cutting 50%   off of the plant causes 50 of the plant's roots to be sloughed off.   The problem is, that isn't true.   It's dead wrong. There's a lot of literature to describe this phenomenon.   50%   of forage removal, in fact, produces   exactly   zero   root removal.   Zero.   Root dieback only begins at 50% removal of above ground biomass.   At 100%   of forage removal, there is 25%   root dieback.   Those outlier boundaries are fairly well established in the literature. Between 50100%   of grazing or cutting,   somewhere between 025%   of the roots dieback.  

What this means is that grasses don't build   a lot of soil organic matter or soil organic carbon until we take them all the way to the ground.   You have to graze them into the dirt.   This is consistent across warm season and cool season grasses.   Building long term organic matter through exudates.   Christine Jones   has some very interesting research on how much of the sugar energy in each of the four sugar sinks is held stable in the soil as organic matter for the long term.   Reproductive   carbohydrates   are typically removed as grain, but she discovered that only 10% of the carbon that is contained in vegetative biomass remains stable in the soil for the long term.   Long term meaning twenty four to thirty six months.  

In other words, it cycles   very quickly.   It gets released as carbon dioxide   very quickly.   So   90% of the carbon contained in vegetative biomass, whether it's a cover crop on the soil surface or even if it's incorporated into the soil,   tends to cycle very quickly and is released as carbon dioxide   back into the atmosphere in a very rapid manner.   Of the root biomass,   60% of its carbon remains in the soil in the long term.   When you have root dieback or root pruning of 25% of the root biomass,   that dead root biomass gets converted into organic matter through decomposition   and microbial   digestion.  

But the important aspect of this is root   exudates.   Christine Jones says that greater than 90   of all of the carbon sent out as root exudates   remain stable in the soil.   These exudates are complex,   humic substances that have a half life of decades.   So if you want to build soil organic matter in the long term,   you have to build lots of root exudates in the soil profile.   Forbs   are extraordinary   exudators.   Forbs, or broadleaf plants, are plants that are not grasses and they are not legumes.   For example,   a dandelion,   chicory,   plantain,   thistles, etcetera.  

What does the root architecture of these plants look like?   They have large taproots   with small lateral roots.   They don't have a lot of fibrous root systems like grasses.   Let's compare forbes to grasses in terms   of where the sugars the plant produces are allocated.   Again, we're talking about the bloom stage just prior to the reproductive period.   The vegetative biomass above ground looks very similar to that of grass.   A fortyten split between biomass and reproductive elements.   But below ground, it looks dramatically different.   Only about 15% of the sugars   go towards root biomass   compared to the 45%   of grasses.  

And about 35%   is devoted to root exudates   compared to a mere five percent in grasses.   We see   that the sugar sinks for these two types of plants are incredibly different.   A broadleaf plant does not store surplus energy in the root system.   It stores its surplus energy outside   the root system as root exudates.   And these four plants are known for having   exceptionally strong relationships with the soil microbiome,   with mycorrhizal fungi, with bacteria, with algae, with protozoa,   etcetera, etcetera.   Forbes are not wasting the energy   they're sending out as root exudates.  

They will be able to extract those nutrients when they need them.   So if root exudates are how you build long term soil organic matter, you can do so much more effectively with Forbes than with grasses.   Grasses hold onto their carbon. They store it in their root biomass.   They don't store it in root exudates.   Forbs store their extra carbon as root exudates and this helps build soil for the long term.   For completeness,   let's also consider legumes.   As with grasses or forbs, the above ground distribution of sugars during the bloom period   goes approximately   10% towards reproduction   and 40% towards biomass.  

The below ground distribution for legumes is somewhat between that of grasses and forbs,   about 35%   root biomass   and 15%   root exudates.   This below ground ratio is variable for all types of plants,   depending on a number of factors, but especially so for the legumes.   The reason for the variation is the amount of sugar energy that legumes expend for nitrogen fixation,   which will be greater in poorer soils.   In very sandy soils or soils with low organic matter and or very low microbial activity,   legumes will spend a lot more sugar energy on nitrogen fixation   and therefore   more sugar is going into exudates than into biomass.  

Pasture management   in light of all this.   In talking with many pasture managers who have practiced the take half, leave half for years   decades even   in many different types of environments from the Dakotas to Florida and everything in between, their experience has been that if they consistently   practice take half, leave half, their pasture becomes dominated   by grasses   and have almost no forbs.   The forbs,   they don't survive.   This is because when you take half and leave half, the grass has so much of its energy stored in the root system that it grows back very quickly.   Forbes   have less energy stored in their root systems, so they're outcompeted.  

And as we've just discussed, more grasses and less forbes means long term soil organic carbon is not being built.   The solution,   and this   is what happens in natural ecosystems,   is   occasionally   stressing the grass   very hard.   I'm not suggesting doing this every year. It could be every couple of years.   But occasionally,   you need to take the grasses   all the way to the ground.   Perhaps you take the grasses all the way to the ground and you even continue to graze on that ground for two weeks or so.   You have to deplete the grass root systems.   When you do that,   when you graze this intensively,   for the remainder of that season and maybe the next year, depending on which part of the year you do this,   you will get a proliferation   of forbs.  

I've talked with dozens of grazers who have tried this. The common theme is that in the year after they graze their grasses very hard,   there appears to be less forage biomass there.   And there is less forage biomass,   there's less yield per acre, and there's less meat production per acre. But the following year, in year number two and thereafter,   for a three to five year window,   the meat production per acre is significantly   higher than it was before the intensive grazing,   in spite of the appearance of less forage biomass.   When I talk about rangeland being dominated by Forbes, I'm not suggesting that the Forbes are the most visible plants.  

Forbes have a small amount of visible biomass compared to grasses.   The pasture will still look like it's dominated by grasses in terms of the amount of biomass that's out there. But when you start doing a count of the number of plants per square meter,   you'll see that you actually have a greater number of forbs than you do of grasses,   even though the vegetative biomass for the forbs is less.   But the common experience   has been that   when we have rangelands that are dominated by forbs,   the conversion from forage to meat becomes much more efficient.   Forbs are more nutrient dense than grasses.  

They have higher protein levels, higher mineral concentrations,   higher energy levels overall,   and they get result   or rather, they result in more meat production per acre   even though there doesn't visually appear to be biomass there to support that   Native ecosystems   I had the privilege of speaking on this topic at Joel Salatin's farm this summer for a Stockman Grass Farmer event.   And we had a pretty fun conversation.   Joel proposed changing the magazine's name to Stockman Forb Farmer, so I guess I was persuasive enough.   Joel shared a conversation with an agronomist   who described how they had evaluated several native prairies,   which, of course, probably hadn't been managed in terms of grazing pressure the way we were prior to a couple of hundred years ago. But they still identified   1,600   different species of plants in the native prairie,   of which only 60 were grass.  

The vast majority of the native species were forbs along with some legumes.   Species diversity comes from having forbs, and species diversity   means diverse exudates,   which means a diverse soil microbial community   and long term soil organic matter.   When I was describing these different plant movements of sugars,   Joel shared a story of mountain man Jim Bridgers,   how he described in his diary crossing the Western Plains on horseback   and riding through a herd of bison that it took seven days to ride across.   And if they hadn't packed feed for their horses,   the horses would have starved   because there was no grass.  

The bison had taken the grass down into the dirt.   Does that sound like take half, leave half?   So that is the,   article,   take half, leave half, and the the the fallacy thereof by John Kempf, who, by the way, is an founder of Advancing   Eco Agriculture. That's the name of his company, Advancing Eco Agriculture.   And he's also the executive editor of Acres USA Magazine.   If you're not listening to Jon Kempf and you're interested at all in in   agriculture, whether regenerative or not, and you're you're missing out. John Kemp is one of my very favorite people in this space.   One of these days, I wanna get him on the show, but that'll come later.  

But now we've got something new to think about.   You know, there's people that that actually suggest to take a third, stomp a third, and leave a third.   Do you after what Jon Kempf is saying, if and let's let's   let's give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Jon's wrong.   I don't think he is, but maybe Jon's wrong.   But if he was right,  

[01:27:02] Unknown:

would take a third, stomp a third, and leave a third help build carbon in the soil?  

[01:27:07] Unknown:

No. It would even be worse.   Take half and leave half is bad enough.   You're not building long term carbon in the soil. And that's where the life raft comes back into play.   It's not, in my opinion, guys, it's not just root exudates. They are critical.   Root dieback in the soil is critical.   These things have to happen.   But when you combine that idea   with stomping recalcitrant   carbon into the soil,   then we get   all manner of carbon that we need in the soil. We get the short lived carbon. We get medium   lived carbon. We get long term carbon, and then we get ten thousand year carbon.   We get all the carbon. We're gonna fill all the niches that any of these carbons could possibly, you know, fill. Right? Because short term carbon   is definitely gonna be used as food for microbes.  

Long term carbon,   the the ten thousand year biochar kind of carbon, the recalcitrant carbon,   that's like apartment buildings for the microbes.   It is. It's I mean, it's like it's it's so porous and it's got all it holds all the water and it holds all the nutrients.   And it's got all these little nooks and crannies in it. It's got the the one gram of this crap has a surface area of an NBA basketball court.   That's a lot of surface area for one gram.   And if you've and it's all folded in on on each other. There's all these tubes and holes and these little pockets,   and that's where the microbes live.  

And and   and they end up being like   this recalcitrant carbon, this biochar in the soil, it's like a coral reef in the ocean.   You could go for miles in the ocean with just nothing but sand on the bottom. And we're talking like, you know,   let's say, like, two, three hundred feet down below the surface of the water. And it's just saying there's no life there.   No. I mean, there's some,   but then you run into a coral reef and everything   changes,   doesn't it?   There's   thousands of species of fish, and there's millions of them. There's   10,000 species of coral. There's crustaceans.  

There's mollusks. There's   all the whole food chain of the ocean is there. It's the same thing   when you've got biochar   in the soil.   It ends up being a coral reef of life.   And as it re as as it reproduce, it grows. That coral reefs grow   in the ocean, and   biochar does too. Once it's there, and we know this from from the studies of terra preta,   all of a sudden,   somehow or another, it's almost as if the recalcitrant   carbon starts to reproduce itself. There's many reasons why this occurs,   but it's not like it's not like the carbon in the soil already is, like, somehow or another making itself into more carbon. It's attractive   to things that contain carbon like   crustaceans   and mollusks   and life forms   like bugs and earthworms and and and scarabs, and and that all dies.  

And it all gets stuck there.   It gets glued onto the recalcitrant carbon and becomes more and more and more and more. And this is how we recharge our soils.   And for every 1%   of carbon that's in your soil,   it's something like it will hold on an acre basis 620,000   gallons of water   chemically. It'll chemically hold it,   will not allow it to run off. Well, if it gets into the soil and it gets into contact with with the biochar, it will not allow it to run off. And it will also not very much give it up in cases of hot drying winds through evaporation   because a,   is if the soils underneath the if the carbon's underneath the soil, it's not exposed to the sun. It's not exposed to the heat. And even if it was,   you   you better fight for that water molecule because the the the stickiness of the carbon in in the biochar   is way more stickier than evaporation can be.  

This this it also sticks to nutrients. It also sticks to bacteria. It   sticks to all life that's in the soil.   After years of a life raft moving through the grazing lanes   and stomping raw carbon at the surface of the soil, plus a couple of other tricks that I got up my sleeve that we'll get into in another episode,   what do you think is going to happen to dead and depleted soils after a few years?   They're they're going to bounce back, and they're gonna get better and better and better. And all the time, we're gonna be taking thousands of pounds of meat out of this system. We're gonna be taking thousands of pounds of walnut meat out of this system.   We're gonna be taking thousands of pounds of eggs out of this system. I haven't even we haven't even scratched the surface.  

We're gonna be selling lumber   of all kinds.   Some of it's going to be so such at a premium price   that by itself, it would support the damn farm. But, no, we're gonna be selling meat and chicken meat and beef meat and goat meat and eggs and whatever else that we can get in there. We're gonna have you pick fruit because we're gonna at one point or another, I guarantee there's be blackberries and raspberries   in the hedgerows,   and there's gonna be   50 miles of hedgerows. Actually, there's gonna be, like, a 100 miles of hedgerow.   This we haven't even scratched the surface. We're still on just what a silvopasture   is.  

If you want more of this,   of these cathedral series, consider   supporting the show at bitcoinandshow.com   bitcoinandshow.com   and sign up.   You I mean, you could do it for free if you want, but if you wanna support me where I can go out and buy food   to shove in my pie hole so that I can bring you more of these,   consider $50 a year. Bitcoinandshow.com,   that's bitcoinandshow.com.   When you hit the hit the sign up button, you'll have a chance to either go for free or go for $50 a year. Please do $50 a year. Help me out. I wanna bring more of these to you.   I mean, I'm I am going to bring more of these things to you, but it would really help me out.  

Really, really help me out if you just kinda like do the donation thing.   Support the show.   Support your podcaster.   Help me help you understand more about God's technology and what it can do for us without a single electron. Well, actually, that's not true. God's technology is filled with electrons. We just don't send them down copper wires.   After that, though,   we're gonna be marrying   some serious technology   into this whole system.   We didn't we we I didn't even really get to talk about the about the   the automated water   cart because the cattle's gotta be watered.  

Right? There's gotta there's gotta be water. Otherwise, the cattle are not they're not gonna make it.   So there's gonna be there's gonna be automation in the water cart. There's gonna be automation in the chicken houses.   They're gonna I mean, the whole thing with the chicken houses that roll behind,   they're automated,   and they just kind of creep and they're solar powered.   It's a perfect place for solar power. It's a perfect application   for solar power. I don't think solar power is very good for charging grids, but in situations like this where I just got a huge barn and it's on wheels and I just need it to scoot along like one inch every minute   or so,   which I think would be a good rate,   Have them turn automatically all in unison because there would be I found some that are we'll see. What is it? It's the Rova Barn 700.  

If you go to it's www.ukukk0robotics.com,   ukk0robotics.com,   ukk0robotics.com.   You'll find it. It's the Rova Barn 700 and you'll be able to see a picture of what I'm talking about. They're 30 foot wide.   They're 30 foot wide. It's perfect.   It's freaking perfect. Let me make sure about that. Where   where where's where's the thing? Yeah. Third it's 30 foot by 30 foot by seven and a half foot tall.   I can put five of them right next to each other.   Or I could put five well, actually, I put five of them. They'd be staggered behind each other just slightly to make sure that the wheels would have clearance. They wouldn't all be side by side, but you get the point.   And they can dry I can program them to drive  

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to where I want them to be.  

[01:36:07] Unknown:

I wouldn't even need fencing. If I had e collars on the cattle that were keeping them in place,   And from what I understand, they work fine.   And I've got chickens   that are inside these barns that are essentially directly on the grass.   You know, the the the the whole barn is right on the grass. And the way that the system works is is that it's got, like, it keeps the chickens in. Right?   But it keeps them on the grass and it just runs the whole thing very, very slowly. And it's solar powered. It's got its own water. It's got its own feed system.   Dude,   we don't even need step in fencing at this point. And we get the entire effect of the life raft from one end to the other.  

And we might be able to do it five times in a year.   And how much carbon can we put in? And how many different seeds can we put in? How much cattle can we raise? And how many chickens can we get? How many s can we get? And, again, we haven't even scratched the surface of all the rest of the revenue streams that can come off the exact same thousand acres   that   is Cathedral.   I'll see you on the other side.   This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.   Have a   great day.