The first year of implementation was the 2024 growing season. Twenty‑six agricultural fields were sampled using the Haney Soil Health Test, which the farm was already using; Lake Galbraith was benchmarked for Secchi depth, temperature, and dissolved oxygen; and every soil‑test point was cross‑referenced with the farm’s management history when possible. The data‑collection program is designed to be implemented by the landowner to keep costs down and to ensure that the land‑stewardship team can participate in the process.
After one year of monitoring, there were some interesting—though not surprising—observations. Pasture soils at ADS averaged a soil‑health score—a measure calculated from Haney Soil Test results that accounts for multiple variables—of 22.6, compared with just 7.1 in conventional row‑crop fields. Organic‑matter percentages showed an equally stark gap: 7 percent in pastures versus 1.8 percent in row crops. When converted to estimated carbon stock, one of the farm’s pasture fields was banking roughly 75 tons of carbon per acre—about twelve times more than a field managed as conventional row crops. Some fields had high amounts of organic matter, but because they are legacy wetlands, they showed poor soil‑health scores due to reduced microbial activity. This is a good reminder that soil is more than just carbon stores and organic matter; it is an incredibly diverse habitat for a whole host of living organisms, and thus the right decision is sometimes to take fields out of production and into habitat or wetland restoration projects.
Water‑quality monitoring was also conducted in 2024 but took a slightly different approach. Lake Galbraith remains highly eutrophic and, given its legacy phosphorus load, large‑scale remediation is unrealistic. The protocol therefore focuses on “not making it worse”: quarterly Secchi disc readings combined with temperature and dissolved‑oxygen profiles are enough to flag early changes. Because ADS already performs similar measurements for the regional Indianna Clean Lakes Program, folding lake monitoring into the land audit required only minor tweaks to existing staff routines.
The project’s first‑year limitations—shallow soil cores, exclusion of wetlands and forest soils, and the absence of formal biodiversity reporting—will be addressed this year and in each year going forward. By sequencing additions over multiple years, ADS can avoid the budget spikes that could derail long‑term monitoring, yet still move steadily toward a full landscape assessment that includes prairie, wetland, and forest acres.
For other organizations, several takeaway’s stand out. First, start with what you can measure today and iterate. Second, integrate field logs with lab data in real time; unrecorded tillage events in the organic fields reminded everyone that management notes are as valuable as laboratory results. Third, build capacity on‑site. Training resident staff to handle routine sampling not only saves money but also deepens institutional ownership of the findings.
Looking ahead, ADS plans to add meter‑deep soil cores in selected plots, establish flora and fauna accounting in restored wetlands, and translate cumulative carbon gains into offsets for campus‑wide energy use. By 2026, the Sisters hope to demonstrate a credible path toward net‑zero operations that marries renewable energy on their building portfolio with measured soil‑carbon sequestration in their fields and forests.
The broader lesson is that our lands are a critical piece of an organization’s sustainability efforts. The goal should be to maximize the diversity of life rather just focus on carbon sequestration. The latter will come if you are able to increase biodiversity. Another lesson is that meaningful stewardship does not require high costs—it requires a right‑sized protocol, disciplined annual auditing, and buy‑in across all stakeholders. Hoffman’s collaboration with ADS shows that when those elements align, land stewardship ceases to be an aspiration and becomes a verifiable, repeatable practice—one that any land‑holding institution can adopt, adapt, and proudly share with its stakeholders.
If your organization is ready to turn sustainability goals into measurable outcomes, our team is eager to help translate this protocol to your acreage, budget, and mission. Together, we can move from good intentions to proven impact.