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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] TESTS & EQUIPMENT required for a functional SUSTAINABLE AG LAB?

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  • From: Douglas Hinds <cedecor@gmx.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] TESTS & EQUIPMENT required for a functional SUSTAINABLE AG LAB?
  • Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2013 02:20:34 -0600

On 03/05/2013 01:39 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
These days there are machines that automatically analyse DNA of the
gazillions of micro organisms in soil. They spew out a list of all the
different species names with relative abundance. I know they are being used
in Australian universities.

If you'll tell me the name of a university using them I'll contact them, although I'm not sure what this signifies. For one thing, Elaine has stated that most of the soil's microorganisms haven't even been identified yet and if that is the case, the substances they produce, the activity of each and the environmental conditions required to produce them is information that no one is even looking for, much less have on hand, so if the machines you mentioned ARE actually able to identify the organisms contained in a given soil same, that wont tell us much able who they are and what they do, but it would be a start.

From there, even if the genome of a given organism has been defined (which have to be true in order to identify it), that doesn't tell us what substances they produce, because a given genome can code for a high number of proteins, depending on the environmental conditions, and no one is developing a data base to define those relationships in a methodical manner, AFAIK.

My point is this: At whatever point we are able to conclusively demonstrate that conventional (chemical) agriculture is on the wrong track, we can legislate it out of existence.

(Maybe not in the USA, but who cares)?

At this point in time, my intention is to determine whether accomplishing this is feasible , in the foreseeable future (what it would take, in terms of equipment and the cost of same).

And meanwhile, we can help farmers to actually make a profit but making sure that the conditions required for avoiding crop and market failure are met.

Douglas

With the soil microorganisms, it depends on how precisely you want to
categorize what's there. On the one hand, you can use a microscope to look
at the broad groups of organisms (Elaine Ingham's method). This would
probably be more practical. You can also use microscopy to quantify
mycorrhizal colonization (there's a vinegar and ink method for staining I
heard about recently, cheaper and less cancer than the old standard for
staining roots). I think you might need two different types of
microscopes,
though. On the other hand, genetic sequencing is getting cheaper and
cheaper and can give you a lot of interesting detailed information. But,
if
you're partnered with a university, they probably have some of that
equipment. I think for identification of the substances the microorganisms
are creating, you'd use gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).

Alia

On Sun, Mar 3, 2013 at 7:14 PM, Douglas Hinds <cedecor@gmx.net> wrote:

On 03/03/2013 03:25 PM, Chris Carnevale wrote:
Hi Douglas,

I'm not sure about what kind of equipment you would need, but certainly
soil testing would be important.
Particularly to quantify the presence of nutritional elements and the
microorganisms that constitute the soil food web.

I would also like to be able to identify the substances being created by
those organisms, the activity of each substance and define the
conditions required for the production of same.




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