Why is the Soil so Important?

Mallorca is the largest of the Balearic Islands off the east coast of Spain. There are mountains from the southwest to the north called the Serra de Tramuntana - the Tramunta Chain - that are, in fact, the highest point of a mostly submarine relief stretching from the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula to the northeast.

Campos, where we are, is NOT in the mountains but is the farm land in the alluvial plains in the south of the island (Migjorn). The land is flat and made up of beautiful (terra rossa) soil. The soil has a clay / sandy texture which renders it hard as cement in the dry summers and muddy and clingy when wet. The ground water also has a slight salt content of 3 PPT (parts per thousand) that affects some plants.

Sadly, over time the soil has been stripped of carbon, organic matter and microbiota through years of monoculture and chemical use desertifying the farmland. But the soils of S’Hort Gran d’es Palmer are being rebuilt under the watchful eye of Permallorca, with cover cropping, diverse perennials, herbaceous plants, shrubs, trees, old straw to provide biomass, and bacterial and fungal inoculants to kick-start the soil biology.

Why is the soil so important?

Our lives depend on soil. The quality, health and nutrient density of plants, thus ours, depends on the quality of the soil. All our energy and nutrition come from plants, all of it, directly or through eating herbivores. Over eons nature has developed the most efficient process for developing nutrient-rich deep top soils with health water retention. The travesty is that in only one hundred years we then severely degraded and wore through the world’s top soils.  Industrial farming methodologies, which include such harmful practices as tilling the soil thus destroying soil microbiology, using chemicals to kill plants (and soil bacteria), to kill fungi (including the vast majority that are benevolent and symbiotic with plants), to kill insects (including pollinators) and chemically fertilize the thus weakened plants (further compromising the soil microbiome) have brought our farmland to its current state. And that is a microcosm of the 38% of the earth land surface dedicated to industrial farming. 

Allow me to go off on a tangent. It is hard to argue that putting these chemicals in our food and that of our children with such abandon has been a good idea, yet it persists. We can discuss the effects of all the chemicals sprayed on our soils and plants, but there is no denying that the WHO defines them, and the largest of them all, Glyphosate, as extremely hazardous or toxic with myriad warnings. Is it not foolish, and self-destructive to continue? The revolution towards organic produce is coming none too soon and we are playing our part in the discovery and education process. 

Rain and Dew Capture

Water is vital to all life. The south of Mallorca, where Campos is located, has a typical Mediterranean climate. Winters are mild and summers are hot and dry. Campos is arid, receiving ~300 mm/yr. of rain.  Most rain comes in intense storms in the autumn, created by cooling winds blowing over a still warm sea. This leads to flooding, then runoff and evaporation in the flat lands of the south. But proper soil structure can and should capture this valuable water to store it for the hot dry months. The Cap Ses Salines graph below shows annual temperature variability near Campos and shows that we must capture and store our October to January rains as well as the vital nightly heavy dew which roll in off the sea. This dew is an enormous source of water that is lost if land is left bare and unplanted. So wall-to-wall plants become even more vital in southern Mallorca, to capture the nightly gift of water from dews and fogs.

We are out to prove that Campos’ dry lands can indeed become a garden of Eden, and then spread the word.

We understand that 300mm/yr. of rain CAN be sufficient if you capture it. The travesty in South Mallorca, as with all arid spots of the globe, is that poor, compacted soils with little organic matter due to poor human land management cause the water to run off or evaporate away, and not penetrate as it naturally would with a rehabilitated soil structure.  

In their current degraded state, the clay and silt soils compact easily and don’t allow for water penetration and capture. Most of southern Mallorca was given over to industrial cattle and sheep farming on increasingly denuded grazing lands as well as monocultural cropping, which rendered the soil nutrient-deficient and tired, causing the rain water to puddle on the land and evaporate. 

Over the summer the land is hot and barren, thus it is left fallow due to the inability of the land to retain water or maintain a thriving microbiome.

The Challenge

The challenge is to restore the soil to vibrant health, allowing dynamic natural processes to return. The recovery process includes carbon capture through intense plant photosynthesis and diverse cover crop planting. This restores nutrients and soil organic matter levels in the soil and provides a cover to the soil throughout the year against heat, cold and wind erosion.

Water is the challenge. With more organic matter there is better soil structure and better water storage for our hot and dry summer months.