By Thys Reynolds
Last fall, Nate Ducasse, Leanna Hayes, and Thys Reynolds drove for more than 4,500 miles across Utah to sample 45 fields from a dozen farmers in seven different counties.
For context, that’s just slightly further than driving from Utah to Panama, or roughly the same as driving from Ohio State University to Los Angeles and back.
During our sampling expeditions, we collected 675 cores for a total of 2025 samples. We saw an incredible diversity of soil types and textures, from vibrant red fine sand outside of Canyonlands National Park to dense, snow-white, calcareous deposits in central Utah’s coal country.
On each sampling trip, we aimed to collect soil from at least two fields with different management histories on the same soil type. This paired sampling allows us to isolate the management effects on carbon storage while controlling for innate soil characteristics. This means that we tried to work with farmers growing multiple crops in the same general vicinity. Alfalfa and perennial pasture were the two most common field types we sampled, since these crops are widespread throughout Utah and provide a good contrast of plant species, tillage, chemical inputs, and animal stocking density. We also took soil cores from unseeded rangeland, grass hay, and small grain rotation fields. 
We bushwhacked our way through some rough rangeland and ended up with more than a few cactus spines in our shoes (and truck tires). We tried to take cores from prairie dog warrens and jackrabbit holes, just for the fun of it, and snacked on field turnips between samples.
We enjoyed sampling conditions of 107 degrees on our Southern border with Arizona in mid-July and one 20-degree morning at altitude in late October. We made friends with quite a few farm dogs, and more curious cattle than we could count. On more than one occasion, we barely managed to prevent adventurous sheep and horses escaping their fields where we worked.
Along the way, we saw some fantastic examples of farmer ingenuity. One farmer has been converting scrubby rangeland to perennial pasture, tinkering with rotational grazing and a long list of forage crops to find just the right balance. Another farmer sprays microbial inoculant on their hay in fields that are dominated by the figures of ancient Fremont Cottonwoods, some more than 7 ft in diameter.
On some days, our careful plans seemed to immediately collapse, and we returned to Logan, our home base, empty handed. On others, we had to turn on a dime due to unforeseen challenges and were only able to collect data thanks to the quick thinking of extension agents and patient farmers. On one or two occasions, the planets aligned, and we were able to collect hundreds of samples from a dozen fields, working by headlamp well into the night.
We feel excited and invigorated by the success of the 2024 field season. We formed some great relationships with growers and are excited to continue this important work in 2025!