Dr. Christine Jones is an internationally renowned and highly respected groundcover and soils ecologist with a PhD in Soil Biochemistry. She has a wealth of experience working with innovative landholders to implement regenerative land management practices that enhance biodiversity, increase biological activity, sequester carbon, activate soil nutrient cycles, restore water balance, improve productivity and create new topsoil. Christine has organized and participated in workshops, field days, seminars and conferences throughout Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the USA and has a strong publication and presentation record.
Christine received a Community Fellowship Award from Land and Water Australia in 2001. The LWA Community Fellowship Program was designed to ‘provide recognition to individuals with an outstanding track record in mobilizing and inspiring the community to better manage their land, water and vegetation’.
In March 2007, Christine launched the Australian Soil Carbon Accreditation Scheme, the world’s first soil carbon incentive scheme based on measurement - making Australia a leading nation in the recognition of soils as a verifiable carbon sink. The ASCAS project rewards landholders for adopting innovative techniques designed to sequester soil carbon and improve soil water holding capacity, thus reducing the atmospheric concentration of both carbon dioxide and water vapour, the two major greenhouse gases.
Last century, Alfred Wegener, a scientist at the University of Marburg, Germany, attempted to explain how it was that identical rocks and identical fossils were being found on opposite sides of the Atlantic. In 1912, Wegener published his theories in a book entitled “The Origin of Continents and Oceans’. He was ridiculed by geologists because he was a meteorologist and not deemed suitably qualified to explain how the world works. It took almost 60 years for the continental drift and tectonic plate concepts to be accepted by mainstream science. Dr. Jones’ field data on rapid soil formation are dismissed because she is a grassland ecologist, not a soil scientist. She hopes it won’t take 60 years for her ideas to gain traction.
“This is too important” she says. “Soil is the foundation for everything. Human lives depend on getting this right”. In 2005, Jones organized what is thought to be the first soil carbon conference to be held anywhere in the world. It was boycotted by the establishment, as were the three that followed. Dr. Jones is worried by the naivety of some in science in regard to soils. She says “they ask questions like ‘where do the minerals come from, if not from fertilizer?’ This just blows me away. It’s like a child believing milk comes only in a carton. The importance of microbes has been forgotten, as has the importance of cows.”
In this months training you will hear information that you not have heard before. The practices that Dr. Jones talks about in this training will change your land, your grasses and your cattle for the better. This will allow all of us to leave the land better than we found it which should be all of our goals!
Dr. Jones has written an article on the ability to change our land and increase the ability to sequester carbon. You might ask, "Why does it matter if our soil can sequester carbon?" and that is a fair question. In the article Dr. Jones has written, she will answer that question for you. To give you a reason to read the article I will tell you that it does not just help the soil hold carbon, but increases minerals and water holding capacity and more. You will find the answers in the article by Dr. Jones.
Be sure to write type your questions in the comment area below for Dr. Jones as you listen to this months training from the Grassfed Network training series.
If you want to learn more about building soils through grazing and the benefits of soil and carbon sequestration, you will get great benefit from this interview series with Dr. Christine Jones. You can have access to this valuable information by clicking the button below.
How does one go about evaluating plant roots to determine a healthy mycorrhizal root relationship is taking place?
Is it possible to make a qualitative assessment of the mycorrhizal activity without sending samples to a lab?