Nutrients for Plants
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#3 The Hustle and Bustle of Healthy Soil: The Soil Food Web
by Cindy Foster
If our bodies ran on facts instead of food, we could glean good health by simply tapping
into the rich diversity of information available on the World Wide Web. Yet, while
cyberspace has been growing at an explosive rate, something alarming has been
quietly happening under our feet.
To thrive, a plant’s roots should find a soil food web as rich and diverse as the Internet,
but instead many of today’s soils more closely resemble outdated encyclopedias full of
ripped-out pages.
The soil food web refers to the interrelated societies that should live in each teaspoon
of soil, including 600 million beneficial bacteria, 150 to 500 feet of fungal hyphae, 20 to
30 useful nematodes, 10,000 protozoa, and several thousand other life forms such as
mites and algae.
Dr. Elaine Ingham, a prominent soil ecologist and assistant professor at Oregon State
University (OSU), has studied this microscopic world for years. According to her, if you
walk barefoot in your garden you should hope there is a teaming metropolis at work
beneath your toes.
“The life within the soil is like a city where there are lots of different kinds of
people - butchers, bakers and candlestick makers,” Ingham says. “Each one
performs a different function and is a part of the system. Soil is like a human
population. Diversity can only be reduced so far before the city falls apart.”
Years of tilling, spraying and fumigating can turn soils into virtual ghost towns
where the only residents left are the ones you don’t want.
Every gardener knows that the most resilient plants are weeds. Well, it turns out that
the same thing is true at a microbial level, Ingham says. For example, a teaspoon of
damaged soil might contain a few root-feeder nematodes (microscopic worms), while
the same-sized pinch of healthy dirt would instead contain 20 to 30 beneficial
nematodes.
Why, you might wonder, would you want to encourage the growth of anything similar to
something you’d dread finding on a dank basement wall? To answer that question, let’s
look at the parts that nematodes play in the soil food web. Some feed on hundreds of
nitrogen-rich bacteria each day, becoming tiny manure factories that excrete nitrogen in
a form the plant roots can easily absorb.
The nematodes also knit another strand of the web as they provide food for creatures
that are higher on the food chain, such as millipedes, centipedes and earthworms who,
in turn, act as the subterranean city’s engineers building the tunnels that provide the
elbowroom for air, water and root growth.
“The life of the soil is built around architecture", says Jim Carpenter, an ecosystem
consultant from Klamath Falls, Oregon, and developer of our mineral-rich plant food.
Soil should ideally contain about 5% organic matter in order to be capable of holding
enough air and water to sustain plants and organisms. Organic matter also provides
food for the beneficial bacteria that congregate in the root zone.
A close look at a healthy root zone illustrates more of the complex interrelationships
that exist in the soil food web. Bacterial and fungal bodyguards not only produce
antibiotic products that protect the plant, but they surround the roots, often hiding the
tender shoots from pathogens and preventing other villains from maneuvering in close
enough to take a nibble.
According to Ingham, plants like this arrangement so well that they dedicate about half
the carbon they use below the surface to exude juices that entice the right kinds of
bacteria and fungi to their root systems. Once the good guys show up some, like
vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizae “VAM,” fungus are even invited in.
Part of the VAM actually grows in the cells of the plants’ roots. From there, thread-like
hyphae weave their way beyond the roots and search out phosphorus, other minerals
and water for their plant host. The VAM also protects the roots from rot and parasitic
nematodes.
If there is a break in the web and a plant can not find a VAM partner, as is often the
case in soils that have received large amounts of chemicals, the plant has to work
harder and may not survive without the addition of fertilizers and fungicides which only
further exacerbate the soil’s problems.
The concept of the interdependence of creatures above ground has been widely
understood for decades, but, although scientists knew soil organisms were important,
studying the web of how their intricate interactions impact on each other is a relatively
new field.
“The whole paradigm in agriculture has been to kill what we do not want rather
than to manage for what we do want”, Ingham says. When she began examining
healthy soils to discover what things were missing from problem soils, she compiled an
extensive database of both healthy and sick soils from all over the world. In the
process, she identified what to nurture in order to heal sick soils.
Looking below the surface is always a critical step because plants derive all
their nutrients except sunshine and CO2, from the soil. “You have to look at
what’s happening between the roots and minerals", Carpenter says, “because
that’s where all the action is.”
Ingham and Carpenter agree that the health and productivity of even most virgin soils
can be improved, and soils that have been damaged by overworking or past exposure
to many chemicals can be rescued.
By nurturing an abundance of soil organisms to establish a healthy soil food web, not
only can harmful pests be controlled, but crop quality and quantity can be increased
without the use of harmful chemicals that damage the environment.
“As people learn these methods," Ingham concludes, “they will not be part of the
chemical paradigm any more.”
Sources:
Dr. Eileen Ingham, Soil Foodweb, Inc.
Jim Carpenter, Carpenter Design Ecosystem Consultants
If our bodies ran on facts instead of food, we could glean good health by simply tapping
into the rich diversity of information available on the World Wide Web. Yet, while
cyberspace has been growing at an explosive rate, something alarming has been
quietly happening under our feet.
To thrive, a plant’s roots should find a soil food web as rich and diverse as the Internet,
but instead many of today’s soils more closely resemble outdated encyclopedias full of
ripped-out pages.
The soil food web refers to the interrelated societies that should live in each teaspoon
of soil, including 600 million beneficial bacteria, 150 to 500 feet of fungal hyphae, 20 to
30 useful nematodes, 10,000 protozoa, and several thousand other life forms such as
mites and algae.
Dr. Elaine Ingham, a prominent soil ecologist and assistant professor at Oregon State
University (OSU), has studied this microscopic world for years. According to her, if you
walk barefoot in your garden you should hope there is a teaming metropolis at work
beneath your toes.
“The life within the soil is like a city where there are lots of different kinds of
people - butchers, bakers and candlestick makers,” Ingham says. “Each one
performs a different function and is a part of the system. Soil is like a human
population. Diversity can only be reduced so far before the city falls apart.”
Years of tilling, spraying and fumigating can turn soils into virtual ghost towns
where the only residents left are the ones you don’t want.
Every gardener knows that the most resilient plants are weeds. Well, it turns out that
the same thing is true at a microbial level, Ingham says. For example, a teaspoon of
damaged soil might contain a few root-feeder nematodes (microscopic worms), while
the same-sized pinch of healthy dirt would instead contain 20 to 30 beneficial
nematodes.
Why, you might wonder, would you want to encourage the growth of anything similar to
something you’d dread finding on a dank basement wall? To answer that question, let’s
look at the parts that nematodes play in the soil food web. Some feed on hundreds of
nitrogen-rich bacteria each day, becoming tiny manure factories that excrete nitrogen in
a form the plant roots can easily absorb.
The nematodes also knit another strand of the web as they provide food for creatures
that are higher on the food chain, such as millipedes, centipedes and earthworms who,
in turn, act as the subterranean city’s engineers building the tunnels that provide the
elbowroom for air, water and root growth.
“The life of the soil is built around architecture", says Jim Carpenter, an ecosystem
consultant from Klamath Falls, Oregon, and developer of our mineral-rich plant food.
Soil should ideally contain about 5% organic matter in order to be capable of holding
enough air and water to sustain plants and organisms. Organic matter also provides
food for the beneficial bacteria that congregate in the root zone.
A close look at a healthy root zone illustrates more of the complex interrelationships
that exist in the soil food web. Bacterial and fungal bodyguards not only produce
antibiotic products that protect the plant, but they surround the roots, often hiding the
tender shoots from pathogens and preventing other villains from maneuvering in close
enough to take a nibble.
According to Ingham, plants like this arrangement so well that they dedicate about half
the carbon they use below the surface to exude juices that entice the right kinds of
bacteria and fungi to their root systems. Once the good guys show up some, like
vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizae “VAM,” fungus are even invited in.
Part of the VAM actually grows in the cells of the plants’ roots. From there, thread-like
hyphae weave their way beyond the roots and search out phosphorus, other minerals
and water for their plant host. The VAM also protects the roots from rot and parasitic
nematodes.
If there is a break in the web and a plant can not find a VAM partner, as is often the
case in soils that have received large amounts of chemicals, the plant has to work
harder and may not survive without the addition of fertilizers and fungicides which only
further exacerbate the soil’s problems.
The concept of the interdependence of creatures above ground has been widely
understood for decades, but, although scientists knew soil organisms were important,
studying the web of how their intricate interactions impact on each other is a relatively
new field.
“The whole paradigm in agriculture has been to kill what we do not want rather
than to manage for what we do want”, Ingham says. When she began examining
healthy soils to discover what things were missing from problem soils, she compiled an
extensive database of both healthy and sick soils from all over the world. In the
process, she identified what to nurture in order to heal sick soils.
Looking below the surface is always a critical step because plants derive all
their nutrients except sunshine and CO2, from the soil. “You have to look at
what’s happening between the roots and minerals", Carpenter says, “because
that’s where all the action is.”
Ingham and Carpenter agree that the health and productivity of even most virgin soils
can be improved, and soils that have been damaged by overworking or past exposure
to many chemicals can be rescued.
By nurturing an abundance of soil organisms to establish a healthy soil food web, not
only can harmful pests be controlled, but crop quality and quantity can be increased
without the use of harmful chemicals that damage the environment.
“As people learn these methods," Ingham concludes, “they will not be part of the
chemical paradigm any more.”
Sources:
Dr. Eileen Ingham, Soil Foodweb, Inc.
Jim Carpenter, Carpenter Design Ecosystem Consultants