Students in Tim Bliss’ agriculture and forestry class have been involved in the Healthy Soil Hayfield Project, which focuses on pretty much what its name says.

An update on that project was presented to the public Monday at the school, with some of the participating students in attendance.

“What’s really wonderful about this is it’s a collaboration between our school, MSU Extension, Log Cabin Livestock, and our students are involved in a project that is trying to solve a problem that really exists a few miles down the road,” Bliss said. “And as it turns out, the more research we did on it, it’s a problem all over the country. “

The project started with a conversation he had about the project last fall with Abbey Palmer, education coordinator at the North Farm in Chatham, with students putting it into action this spring.

Below, The students work on the project at a different location. (Photo courtesy of Tim Bliss)

The project was made possible through a Sustainable Agriculture Education and Research grant.

Palmer noted that apart from the educational value, there’s a “soft skills” component to the project.

“This is hands-on learning opportunities for students, and I have been so incredibly impressed with their performance in the field,” Palmer said. “They’ve gone out and taken lots and lots of soil tests and they help each other. They are kind and respectful to each other.”

The concept of the grant was to connect concepts taught in the classroom with farmers, she said.

Also involved in the project were local farmers Ben and Denise Bartlett of Log Cabin Livestock and Jim Isleib, MSU Extension crop production educator.

The project is focusing in the basic problem of hayfields, Bliss said.

“We grow hay pretty well around here,” he said. “Our climate is good for that. Our soils are pretty good for that, but you just can’t take hay away forever and forever and expect the soil to maintain that kind of health long term.”

He said people might have noticed that the Bartletts’ sheep in the summer are constantly moving by being rotated between fields.

“They’re munching, they’re pooping, they’re adding to the soil,” Bliss said. “They get rotated out and they do it again.

“The issue is the hayfields that can’t get their sheep to. How do you keep those nutrient levels up? So, our problem was: Could we find some solutions to that? If you are having difficulty putting nutrients back into the soil, what can you do to improve it long term, make it sustainable?”

And it’s not just nutrients that make soil healthy, he said; it’s the bio-organisms and their symbiotic relationships with plants as well.

So, the class researched soil health and how to produce more food on less land for more people, Bliss said.

The students sent soil samples to Michigan State University and other laboratories, and took part in many tests.

Those included Solvita tests — which measure respiration rate of soil bacteria — that the students performed on their own, he said.

The test plot at ET and Tunteri roads, which measured 50 feet by 500 feet, hadn’t been rotated or fertilized in years. For the project, the plot was individed into 15 equal sections so each treatment plus a control set could be conducted three times.

Initial student ideas for the project included winter mulching with waste hay and spreading manure.

The chosen treatments were composted manure, diverse cover crops, mulch and a synthetic fertilizer, in this case, nitrogen-based urea.

Bliss said the mulch was created by mowing the hay and leaving it, allowing the compost to go back into the soil.

“The hay itself — the grass that grows — has nutrient value as it photosynthesizes,” Bliss said. “It takes nutrients from the soil. It makes new nutrients.”

Bliss said it’s too early in the project to draw any hard conclusions, although he has high hopes for the compost method — at least for now.

“Hopefully this will go on for a few years, and each year we improve upon it and learn a little bit more and maybe solve this problem, or add some evidence to it at least,” Bliss said.

Eleventh-grader Ethan Pizzi has a different idea outlook on soil after having been involved in the Healthy Soil Hayfield Project: Soil is more than just dirt.

“It’s more important than I think,” Pizzi said. “It’s kind of the reason why we get all of our food. It kind of runs the world, basically.”