Colorado Reader Feb. 2020: Soil, Water, and Air Stewardship | Page 7

Cover crops – Farmers can plant
cover crops after harvest. The
growing plant roots help hold the
soil in place during winter and early
spring. Wind and water erosion can
be greatly reduced. Cover crops can
also absorb extra nutrients in the soil
(like nitrogen). This prevents them
from running into watersheds. Cover
crops can increase soil health, water
retention, and even yield. Healthy soil
decreases greenhouse gas emissions
by increasing soil carbon storage.
Rotational grazing – Cattle, sheep,
or horses graze (eat) on grasses
and other forages in pastures and
fields. To prevent soil erosion or
compaction, ranchers rotate their
animals to different pastures or
different areas within one pasture.
This practice helps more plants grow
and improves the quality of the soil.
Selective breeding – Selective
breeding is the process by which
humans select plants and animals
with desired traits to propagate. These
desired traits could include growth
rate and milk production in livestock
or time from seed to harvest and
cold tolerance in plants. The opposite
of selective breeding is natural
selection where plants and animals
reproduce only by “survival of the
fittest” rather than humans helping to
select helpful traits. In terms of food
production, plants and animals would
be less productive without selective
breeding. Selective breeding enhances
our resilience to climate change.
Crop rotation – Crop rotation is a
farming practice where farmers change
the crop they grow on a piece of land
each year. In Colorado, it is common
for farmers to rotate crops like corn
and wheat. This practice helps to
control weeds and reduces pests.
Rotating crops also improves the crop
yields, or the amount of a crop that is
harvested from one field. When crops
are planted in rotation, less nutrients
in the form of fertilizers are needed for
plants to grow. Reducing fertilizer use
reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
Irrigation - Farmers use efficient
irrigation techniques, like center
pivot sprinklers or even subsurface
(underground) drip irrigation.
Irrigation is the application of
controlled amounts of water to
plants. In Colorado, most farmers
are in areas where they don’t get
enough rainfall to support certain
crops, so they must add water
to the ground with irrigation.
Recycling water – Many farmers are
able to recycle the water they use for
multiple uses. For example, on a dairy
farm, water is used to clean the area
where the cows are milked and the
equipment to milk the cows. That same
water is then used to flush the manure
out of the barns. Next, it is blended
with irrigation water to nourish crops
being grown in the field. Those crops
are oftentimes used as feed for the
dairy cows. It is a complete cycle!

Fun with Words
Stewardship is a big word.
You might not have even
heard of it before. Let’s have
a little fun with this word.
List all of the new words that
can be spelled using only
the letters in stewardship.
stewardship
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