We became part of the Seeding Regenerative Agriculture network in 2019, and through that build our very first Johnson-Su bioreactors in a barn days with friends and farmers. Soon after, we partnered with NM Healthy Soil Working Group. From then onwards we hosted at least one community based workshop/ field day per year on local technics pertaining to agro-ecology, regenerative farming, and/or ecosystem restoration. We see ourselves as extremely humble learners.  These events foster peer to peer knowledge transfer within the superb setting that the ranch offers in terms of nature, food and hospitality. This setting is the fruit of hard work of all who came before and contributed to where we are now. We also inherit a confronting ecological and social reality (desertification, violent colonial history). Together we dedicate our collective efforts to improve the situation for future generations.

Synergia Ranch has been working on ecological conservation and enrichment of our local ecology since it began in 1969. Most of the 111 acres have been left to recover from decades of early overgrazing in the years after the land was first homesteaded. Hundreds of trees have been planted as  soil protection around the Ranch to mitigate wind and water erosion and provide shade. From 2023 onwards we have been planting pollinator hedgerows, and have started with grass hedges since 2024 in order to boost biodiversity and create more habitat. In the 2025 we are initiating building more erosion control structures to continue the work of those who established Synergia ranch.

Historically the ranch made tons of windrow compost using horse manure from the race-track. Sources of free horse manure have diminished leading us to research new sources of bulk feedstock. In parallel we took an interest in using compost as a way to inoculate soils with biology (through the Soil Foodweb School). Even in our natural gardens and orchards, the impact of years of intense growing were showing, and we noticed that fungal hyphae were not present in our samples (viewed under the light microscope) in the manner that they should be. We also noticed that our irrigation water is contributing to salinizing the soil due to it’s high mineral contents. These are confronting realities that inspire us to develop new approaches, which is what we are now working towards. From 2021 – 2024 we have been using Polks’ folly compost as a basis for no-dig vegetables and for enriching the tree basins in the orchard. Since 2019 we have been learning how to make biological compost from Dr. Elaine Ingham, as well as from the Johnson-Su bioreactor community.  In 2024 we visited James and Joyce Skeet at Spirit Farm and learned about static composting with vertical chimneys as well as why we should be using biochar in our composts. Thanks to them and to our neighbors David Sunberg and Josh Weybright we started to make biochar in small batches towards the end of 2024, and we have mixed the biochar into our composts at the end of that year. We plan to be up scaling our composting from 2025 onward with the aim to regenerate soils, and increasing biodiversity at Synergia Ranch.

We are currently in the first phases of setting-up a perennial native nursery to give our own land restoration a quantum leap, as well as one day be able to provide high quality starts for restoration projects. It is work in progress.