The Ecological Connection in Farming, Ranching, and Gardening

Understanding the ecological connection about the lands we farm, graze, and plant gardens are important because the historic or natural plant communities that existed before cultivation are inextricably linked to what our lands are capable of today (potentials, productivity, sustainability, and resistance and resilence to disturbances). Many US government land management agencies are now using the concept of ecological site or similar models of classification in land management. State and transition models associated with ecological sites are the culmination of a collection of knowledge about ecosystem dynamics and changes in response to natural events and management applications. They are diagrammatic portrayals with narratives and identification of specific environmental drivers—states can change because of natural or anthropogenic disturbance events or lack of natural events. Altered states such as cropland and pasturelands emerged at some point in history from clearing timber and/or plowing grasslands and are now identified in state and transition models. Nature often imposes its will where some cropland and pastureland sites, when abandoned, have a tendency to return to brush and trees (often referred to as “go-back land.” Note the connotation to some cropland and pasturelands—the use of ecological sites and inclusion of altered states identifies if this dynamic is operative. Ecological sites are dynamic and unique across the landscape of the United States, and awareness and use of ecological site descriptions on the lands we live on, either on a farm, ranch, or garden, is the first step in maintaining soil health, sustained productivity, and continued prosperity of any agricultural endeavor. The objectives of this chapter are (1) introduce mainstream ecological classification concepts, (2) discuss the connection and importance of ecological sites in addressing soil and plant health, and (3) provide an example of ecological site description with state and transition model with natural vegetation states and altered states (pastureland, cropland, and agroforestry).