PT Ranch, located in Ione, California, has been in Molly Taylor’s family since the 1950s. Her family inherited the ranch from her grandfather. The Taylors started managing the property in 2018, Molly is the ranch manager and her parents own the operation. Their main goal for the ranch was for it to deliver ecosystem services to the land and community while providing “pasture raised regenerative meats”. In 2020, with the goal of improving their regenerative meats, they began planting cover crops, applying compost, and stopped tilling their hay fields. In the past, the farming operation applied pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizer as part of their conventional management. When Molly and her parents took over management, they eliminated the use of those expensive chemicals, which allowed them to also significantly reduce costs.

PT Ranch has planted a large range of crops as cover crops. From purple top turnip, clovers, and collard greens to annual grasses like oats and rye, the fields they plant cover crops on are wildly diverse. After planting seeds of the cover crop of choice with a no-till drill in the fall, they bring in cattle to graze it off in the spring, feeding their cash crop on a rich variety of plants.

After grazing, Molly and her team lay down all the biomass left over to create soil cover, and then drill into that to plant seeds again the next fall. Since they don’t till, whatever is left on the field from the previous planting stays on the land and creates a diverse mix of crops. When asked which cover crop has been the most successful, Molly shared that the “turnips have taken off in some of the fields”. They harvested the crops to sell as a hay mix for the first time this year, but her and her team have found that a more diverse hay mix is unfamiliar to most buyers.

California is currently facing intense droughts due to “rising temperatures, groundwater depletion, and a shrinking Colorado River… the main external source of water for Southern California”. Farmers must adapt to the shortage of water. The addition of regenerative practices has made PT Ranch more resilient to extreme weather events such as droughts. Cover crops play a role in this resiliency because they’re adding soil cover and biodiversity, both of which improve soil health and make it more robust when faced with changes in precipitation.

The goals of adding cover crops to their land are to fix nitrogen, eliminate soil compaction from years of tillage, and suppress weeds. Molly shared that compared to neighboring farms that don’t use regenerative practices, PT Ranch has more biomass, greater tonnage of hay since they don’t eliminate any of the crops growing, and have greater water holding capacity especially in areas with more compost. Molly stated that “soil cover and organic matter are huge when we’re talking about the fluctuations in our precipitation”.

Molly shared that the biggest challenge when it comes to adopting regenerative practices such as cover crops is cash flow. PT Ranch applied to the Healthy Soils Incentive Program which is a cap-and-trade funded program that finances farmers and ranchers in California to adopt climate smart agriculture practices. They received funding for no-till, compost application, and cover cropping for the 3 hay fields they have. Molly said that without the Healthy Soils Incentive Program grant, they would not have been able to afford to make these regenerative switches. She’s found that a lot of people aren’t willing to “take that risk unless there’s some assurance that they’re either going to get a grant or some type of carbon credit income from the transition”. In addition to receiving grant funding, PT Ranch is currently working with Carbon Yield on monetizing their carbon credits after a successful feasibility study. Currently, Carbon Yield is guiding them through the verification process before the credits are listed on the Nori carbon market. Dealing with market pressures and the learning curve that’s present when adopting regenerative practices has been tough, but Molly has found that due to the added diversity, the ranch is more resilient since it’s not depending on only one commodity to make a profit.

While the process can be long and difficult, there are many benefits to adopting regenerative practices like cover crops to soil health, human health, and the overall health of the planet. As the Climate Smart Agriculture Program Manager for the Community Environmental Council in California, Molly has found that carbon credits can address the cash flow problem that often occurs during the transition period to regenerative agriculture. Carbon Yield helps alleviate some of the stress and uncertainty that farmers may feel during this transition. As Molly put it “Carbon Yield is playing a really crucial role in bringing farmers and ranchers to the table in a way that relieves them of the administrative burden” of navigating the many protocols and standards for monitoring, reporting, and verifying carbon credits.

Interview with Molly Taylor on Cover Crops