giglewigle
Well-Known Member
randomly it woldent let my either ill try it again
understand the role of bacteria and fungi in this process. Bacteria and fungi are responsible for the
MAJORITY of soil break-down, much more than weathering.
When you send a soil chemistry test into a soil chemistry lab, what do they tell you about? They will
report back on ONLY the soluble, inorganic forms of the nutrients. Where do you get more? You have to
have the organisms that will pull those nutrients out. There is no soil test anywhere that will tell you
about the total pool. You could go the NRCS and they can tell you about the total pool, and I guarantee if
you do, you will never buy inorganic fertilizers ever again.
So - who told you that you have to have a soil chemistry test? The same people who want you to buy
fertilizers.
So - let's go over what having the proper biology in the soil does:
-- Suppress disease (castle wall, selecting for aerobic bacteria, etc.)
-- Retain nutrients right in the root zone
-- attract bacteria & fungi predators that poop out the right nutrients every second of every day
-- Those nutrients become available at the levels and rates that plants require
-- Replenish!! We don't want excess, because they leech out of the soil!
-- Prevents water contamination (tied up in the bacteria and fungi which are glued to the root zone)
-- Decompose toxins (aerobic biology does this work)
-- Build soil structure
-- Roots go deeper
-- Water holding capacity is increased
Elaine made a brief reference to her belief that crop rotation predicated by a desire to avoid crop-killing
pathogens isn't necessary when you have the proper biology in the soil. That if the soil biology is correct,
you can plant the same crop in the same soil year-on-year without fear of wide-spread plant disease
issues. Ditto the concern that you will take up all the mineral nutrients for a given plant.
Now, getting back to organic matter. Where does it come from? Initially, from photosynthesis. And then
chains of carbon. And then the dead plant material falls back to the surface of the soil. The most rapid
rates of decomposition ever recorded on this planet were in systems like we have here: in arid systems,
under a layer of snow. Once you have snow covering the dead material, it will decompose faster than it
disappears in a tropical rain forest. The fastest rates of decomposition have been recorded over and over
again in the Rocky Mountains and in this part of the world. If, come spring, you see you still have a lot of
undecomposed plant material on the ground, it means you don't have a healthy food web.
The decomposition process begins with certain species of bacteria and fungi, which then are consumed by
other bacteria and fungi and then on up the trophic levels, creating more complex sugar chains over time
-- sugars then amino acids, and proteins and lipo-polysaccarides and hormones, then your olmic, fulvic
and humic acids. The humic acids appear in your microscope (under 400x magnification) as dark brown
blobs. The fulvic acids appear as honey-colored blobs. These are your savings accounts in your soil.
Where all the nutrients are stored. Your most important specie require those fulvic acids and the humic
acids, so you want to make sure your soil is getting darker and darker brown.
Pay attention to the color of your soil, and of your compost! Notice that this is NOT black -- it is a very
rich brown! If your soil has become anaerobic, the pests and the bacteria and diseases that live in
anaerobic environments will produce BLACK soil. (Think of soil at the bottom of a pond or lake). All of
your nitrogen will be gone. All of your sulfur. All of your phosphorus. All will be gone into the
environment as a gas. Only under anaerobic conditions are these lost into the environment as a gas. You
can usually tell by the smell. Your will be producing some pretty toxic chemicals -- preservatives, in
some cases, like formaldehyde.
So - soil should not be black. It should be a rich, dark brown color. There is a color chart that you can go
buy, so I invite you to go to the grocery store, and buy a color chart for your soils, for your compost. That
color chart can be found in the chocolate bar section. You want to buy a 70% cocoa chocolate bar. That
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