Episode 133: The Power of Companion Planting with Ian Gould

Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

AEA Marketing

Science, Natural Sciences, Earth Sciences

4.7 • 548 Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2024

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ian Gould is a leading figure in regenerative agriculture in the UK, whose focus is on incorporating plant diversity into conventional farming systems to improve both environmental health and productivity. His work includes researching how companion planting and varietal differences within the same species, such as wheat, can enhance crop resilience, improve nutrient uptake, and optimize biomass production.

In this episode, John and Ian discuss:

The role of multi-species cover crops in improving soil health and productivity
Innovations in companion cropping and intercropping for increased yields and reduced pest pressures
The challenges and benefits of integrating plant variety diversity into mainstream agricultural
How smaller, more vegetative plants are often more resistant to frost in the UK climate
Nutrition management for disease and pest resistance
The importance of varietal differentiation as a critical component for optimizing yield and achieving environmental benefits

Ian is the director of Oakbank Game and Conservation Ltd. His work is driven by his early experiences in plant breeding. He first encountered regenerative ideas at the UK's Groundswell Festival.

Additional Resources
To learn more about Ian's work at Oakbank, please visit: https://oakbankgc.co.uk/

About John Kempf
John Kempf is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA). A top expert in biological and regenerative farming, John founded AEA in 2006 to help fellow farmers by providing the education, tools, and strategies that will have a global effect on the food supply and those who grow it.

Through intense study and the knowledge gleaned from many industry leaders, John is building a comprehensive systems-based approach to plant nutrition – a system solidly based on the sciences of plant physiology, mineral nutrition, and soil microbiology.

Support For This Show & Helping You Grow
Since 2006, AEA has been on a mission to help growers become more resilient, efficient, and profitable with regenerative agriculture.

AEA works directly with growers to apply its unique line of liquid mineral crop nutrition products and biological inoculants. Informed by cutting-edge plant and soil data-gathering techniques, AEA's science-based programs empower farm operations to meet the crop quality markers that matter the most.

AEA has created real and lasting change on millions of acres with its products and data-driven services by working hand-in-hand with growers to produce healthier soil, stronger crops, and higher profits.

Beyond working on the ground with growers, AEA leads in regenerative agriculture media and education, producing and distributing the popular and highly-regarded Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, inspiring webinars, and other educational content that serve as go-to resources for growers worldwide.

Learn more about AEA's regenerative programs and products: https://www.advancingecoag.com

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, friends. This is John. Welcome to the regenerative agriculture podcast where we have all kinds of fun conversations related to regenerating soil, landscapes, and human health, and everything that connects the dots between those.
0:14.8	I've been looking forward to the conversation today for quite some time. I have with me, Ian Gold from Oak Bank Game in the UK. And Ian has been doing
0:24.0	some fascinating work with cover crops and with ecological restoration from a slightly
0:30.7	different perspective than the one we commonly are exposed to here in the U.S. and here in North
0:35.8	America. And so, Ian, thank you for being willing to
0:39.5	be here today. You know, there are, there are so many things for us to talk about. I'm hoping to
0:44.4	get into some of these conversations. Over the last several months, I've been studying and I've been
0:52.1	thinking about plants and seeds as microbial inoculants,
0:57.4	seeds as vectors of a microbiome.
1:00.8	And from this perspective, what we've been learning from Christine Jones and from James White
1:06.1	and others is that rather than thinking about individual varieties, or perhaps even individual species,
1:15.6	we should be thinking in terms of plant families. But you've had some experiences that actually
1:21.5	go in the other direction of that, that describe how individual varieties can be very unique from each other in the way that they show up
1:29.7	in an ecosystem. So I want to get into some of that conversation, but why don't you give us some
1:34.5	context for the scope of your work? What has been your journey over the last couple of decades,
1:39.8	and what's the scope of the things that you're working on today? So the thing that really set me off on sort of this journey that I've been on around
1:47.9	regenerative agriculture and using plants to solve problems in agriculture was completely
1:55.2	my visit to the first groundswell show that happened about, I think it's about 10 years ago.
2:03.8	And now when you think the scale that it's got to now, where there's sort of 8,000 visitors over two days,
2:08.8	back then it was about 300 people in one barn. And my first job in agriculture was involved
2:16.4	in plant breeding of new cereal varieties at what was the old plant breeding Institute.
2:22.6	And it was sort of opened up my mind to the possibility of some of the things we'd learned doing habitat creation in terms of using teams of plants together to deliver different benefits could also maybe be
	...

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