Researchers estimate that soil erosion costs $44 billion each year in the U.S., mostly due to lost soil productivity, and hilly farm landscapes are some of the most challenging to preserve.

Soil erosion on hilly farm landscapes can be a significant problem because soil properties and crop yields can vary throughout the field and often reflect the pattern of soil movement, resulting from the combined erosive effects of tillage and water.

Often, nutrient-rich topsoil will naturally move downward on a farm, which means elevated slopes may be depleted of soil organic matter, plant-essential nutrients and available water, rendering those areas low-yielding — especially in dry years, researchers say. 

Conversely, lower elevated slopes may have deep topsoil accumulation, with soils high in organic matter and nutrients, making them high-yielding in dry years but low-yielding in years with excess moisture. Most growers want consistency, which can be a challenge on a farm with varying elevation.

“We need to restore the productivity of eroded land without undermining the productivity of “good” soils,” says Sharon Schneider, research leader at the Integrated Cropping Systems Research Unit in Brookings, S.D. 

From Here to There

One method is reversing the soil erosion by moving soil from where…