6 Soil Health Principles for Regenerative Cattle Ranches

Know Your Context.

Successful regenerative ranchers know their context — their individual situation. This is their climate, geography, resources, skills, family dynamics, goals and any other factor that will influence themselves and their operation. They understand how the ecosystem processes function on their land, which enables them to work with those processes. They know what’s available to them to work with, and they apply the rest of the soil health principles in ways that align with and make the most of what they have for the benefit of the land, their profitability and their quality of life.

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Covering or Armoring the Soil.

Ranchers who are successfully regenerating their soils keep the ground covered. These ranchers use actively growing forages and forage residues to keep the soil covered. They manage their forages and forage residues through grazing management and stocking rates based on carrying capacity. It is nearly impossible to keep the soil sufficiently covered on a ranch that is consistently overstocked and overgrazed. Regenerative ranchers manage forage residual heights and amounts during both the growing and the dormant seasons. If the base forage does not provide enough soil cover, they may also use annual forages or cover crops.

Minimizing Unnatural Disturbance.

Regenerative ranchers carry this principle beyond the soil to include the plants because plants and soil make up an interconnected ecosystem. There are many different kinds of disturbances, some natural and others unnatural. For instance, grazing and periodic fire are natural disturbances in grasslands. Lack of either one would be an unnatural disturbance. Mechanical tillage is not natural and should be minimized. However, periodic soil disturbance by the hooves of grazing animals and tunneling by roots and earthworms is natural and good for soil health. This is why you may sometimes hear graziers state this principle as “optimize disturbance.”

Increasing Plant and Animal Diversity.

Successful land stewards understand that community diversity is important for healthy, functional ecosystems. This is why regenerative ranchers try to increase not just plant diversity but also animal diversity. They do this by grazing multiple species of animals on diverse mixes of forages in pastures that are alive with micro- and macro-flora and fauna both above- and below-ground.

Maximizing Actively Growing Roots. 

This is where graziers with healthy native rangelands have an advantage. Healthy rangelands are made up of hundreds of species of plants, which means something is almost always actively growing whether it is the warm or cool season. Graziers with introduced pastures are increasing their actively growing roots by managing for polycultures of warm- and cool-season perennial forages or overseeding with annual cover crops to fill gaps when their primary forage is dormant.

Properly Integrating Livestock.

What makes regenerative ranchers different from other ranchers is how their livestock are grazed. We are not referring to these ranchers using any one system or class of livestock. We’re talking about their management and manipulation of five critical grazing fundamentals.