TRUCHAS, NM. — On the western slope of the Sangre de Cristo mountains in New Mexico, Gordon Tooley manages an apple tree orchard and nursery called Tooley's Trees.

When he bought the land in 1991, he says it was overgrazed and had eroded.

"From where I'm standing here, we have about 11 western states that are all tortured and in rough shape and is part of our big picture water cycle of why we have climactic chaos," Tooley said. "We are in a highly evaporative water cycle and a transformational one because we have a lack of plants and too much bare ground.”

It’s hard to see this time of year, but Tooley says his land has no bare ground. It’s completely covered in grasses, plants, trees and shrubs.

“I am totally committed to changing the way water behaves, getting moisture into the soil and getting roots into the soil and protecting the diversity of our genetic material that is at risk," Tooley said. "More than half of the varieties of apples that were in North America a hundred and fifty years ago are gone now. So that's about eight thousand varieties that are missing."

Tooley has traveled across the state collecting different apple varietals to build that diversity back up. Agricultural ecologist and soil scientist Jerry Glover says there’s a benefit to having a wide collection of trees, plants and shrubs.

“A variety of apples that are flowering at different times of the year, in addition to the range of plants, grasses, other flowering plants that are growing in the orchard, provides a lot more nectar resources, probably over a much longer period of the season for a greater diversity of pollinators — Bees, wasps, even flies other insects that are very important to keeping that ecosystem vibrant and thriving,” Glover said.

Glover says more plants mean greater biodiversity.

“We've seen a troubling collapse of biodiversity around the world over the past 50 years,” Glover said.

Though it may look different from state to state, Glover says farmers all over the U.S. can implement similar practices of covering bare ground and growing a diversity of crops. However, he says it can come at a cost.

“Folks not familiar with farming assume that farmers should just do this," Glover said. "Ya know, why not? Well, the 'why not' is because these more complex systems where you're growing more crops, more different types of plants over a longer period of the year requires more information, requires more management inputs from the farmer.”

Glover says it’s a big problem if farmers can’t make a profit. Nonetheless, he says there is a growing need for farmers to maintain healthy soil and support biodiversity as we move into a future where our food systems could be at risk.

“We need to make sure that the land that we're producing on is producing as much as possible with the least amount of environmental damage,” Glover said.

Tooley says he believes every person, not just farmers, can do their part to grow food and build healthy ecosystems.

“People are maybe deciding that, you know, 'I have a tiny backyard, I'm going to plant some fruit trees, I'm going to plant some shrubs, I'm going to make a pie, I'm going to pull carrots, grow squash, beans, whatever,'” Tooley said.

 

For those who didn't learn what a perennial grain crop is as a kid, it's like the grass you see on the side of a road that comes back year after year, except it's capable of growing food humans can eat. 

The agriculture industry faces an immense challenge.

It needs to feed a growing population, but the process of providing that growing population tends to take an environmental toll on our planet. So scientists are using new technology and innovation to come up with solutions.

Kernza is essentially a cousin of wheat. It tastes sweet and nutty.

And its roots store carbon in the ground to help prevent soil erosion and water runoff. Unlike annual grain crops like wheat, oats, and corn, Kernza doesn't need to be tilled or replanted every year.

But Kernza wasn't born this way. Lee DeHaan and his team at The Land Institute in Kansas selectively bred it. And if there were an award for best plant parent, DeHaan would win gold.

"I grew up on a farm in Minnesota, and I heard about the idea of perennial crops when I was still a kid and wanted to develop a perennial grain crop," DeHaan said. "Every plant gets labeled and identified, and a couple of months ago, I took a small piece of leaf, and we essentially do '23andMe' for plants."

The process helps predict how each plant will perform, how tall it'll be, how much seed it'll grow, and how large its seeds will be.

"Wherever humans have gone and done agriculture, we've seen a massive loss of soil carbon and soil quality," DeHaan said. "That carbon is now in the atmosphere, and part of the solution to climate change is to get that carbon back in the soil."

DeHaan says it'll take decades to transform the developing crop from a specialty crop to a large-scale one, but for the plant parent whose devotion has sustained over 20 years, it's a dream DeHaan plans to see through.

Lauren Magarino at Newsy first reported this story.