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  • From: Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Tvo post Mar 98- Trashland Treasure
  • Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 17:25:04 -0700

SISU! wrote:

Bill Jones wrote:

Actually I looked into this question years ago. I wondered if anything can be done with conifer waste, other than spreading it in the paths to kill weeds. And other than whittling and a fun homemade
soap, I found the answer is no. Even if not for the turpentine and rosin, the lignin molecule of conifers cannot be digested by fungi, and doesn't break down into healthy soil. That's why the land under them is barren except for a few specialists.


????? What the heck kind of conifers do you have? From my memory, it
is mostly Douglas Fir and Sitka Spruce out there, and maybe some short
stubby pine that I don't know the name of..grows near the ocean.
Still, Bill, I'm not getting your argument. ALL plant material will
compost, even conifers.

ALL plant material will compost if you grind it fine and mix in enough manure, but will the result leave "humus", and who has a huge quantity of manure to mix with pine needles? Apparently much less humus results from hot, bacterial composting than with slower fungal methods of composting.

There are three common types of lignin (and many other more specific ones). The people at LaVal U. seem to think that dry grass, hardwood chips, and softwood chips break down differently (i. e., they tested countless samples of soil mixed with various types of sheet composting materials and analyzed the evolution of both the material left behind and the soil leachates). They found that grass lignin breaks down quickly to form humus, resulting in a brown soil, but that the humus doesn't persist for very long in soil thereafter. Conifer lignin takes forever to break down, but when it does it produces compounds toxic to most plants, and little persisting humus. Hardwood lignin breaks down into healthy soil at a moderate rate, if I recall, but the abundant humic compounds that result are purported to have half-lives of 1000 years in the soil!

You think Georgia doesn't have pines and other
conifers?? Please. They don't call it Georgia-Pacific for nothing. We
got Yellow Pine and other types of conifers everywhere. There's cedar,
hemlocks and even some Frazier Firs. It all contains turpentine and
resins, and it all composts. It's acidic, sure, but you neutralize the
acidity with other materials.

The folks at LaVal U. tell us that 20% of softwood materials can be added to the twig chip mixture they recommend for sheet composting. But we have way more than that around here. It does make a good soap...

It's more to the point that _we_ don't have many hardwoods in most places, especially on high ground. Last fall I went looking for a solid grove of alders from which I could extract some mycelial inoculant from the leaf litter, and found none despite searching far and wide. Is it that difficult for YOU to find a patch of deciduous leaf litter? I'd have been better off down in the salmonberry patch that I'm clearing away for the new pasture.

I once heard an anecdote from a fellow who was growing tomatoes using a mulch of cypress. It turned out he had solid chalk in Spain. It's interesting to hear that nightshades, of all things, thrive in well-limed softwood materials, but I always wondered if his success continued, and which other plants could be grown that way. It's a great research project for anyone with the time, but I'm usually growing them the best way I know how, rather than experimenting with the unknown.

As for a reason nothing grows under your
conifers....it's probably a shading issue or foraging by non-native
species or something like an overpopulation of deer. Oregon, and
especially the Coast Range, is one of the "greenest" places I have ever
seen, and I am just having a hard time understanding your argument over
the soil.

It's green from shrubs, and trees, and in the understory, but just not on cleared spots without groundwater in summer, which is most places not sporting those useless firs.

It's too dry for grasses...too many conifers for much
sylviculture

Well, if you can eat wood, or the pinon pine or Italian pine thrives near you, or you own a sawmill, you might find a use for them. I'm already satisfied with the amount of that great commodity known as "shade" that they provide. :)

, and what else....hmmm, I can't remember....oh yeah,
conifers don't build the soil because of the lignin. You are wrong in
that there is no fungus that produces the right enzymes. Check this
page out:
http://compost.css.cornell.edu/calc/lignin.html

That's a good paper. Here's an except:

In this same study, the increase in lignin degradation of hemlock pulp with 0.12% supplemental nitrogen was only 2.2% to 3.9%, and additional nitrogen did not provide further benefit. The differences between plant species is likely related to differences in lignin structure, with gymnosperm lignin composed of coniferyl alcohols, angiosperm lignin composed of both coniferyl and sinapyl alcohols, and grass lignin of coniferyl, sinapyl, and p -coumaryl alcohols (Ladisch et al., 1983).

Apparently there are special fungi that deal with conifer lignin, but still without producing healthy soil. The LaVal folks seem to think that conifers deliberately toxify their soil to prevent competition

It seems to me, that the problem with the natural conifer forest floor
is that it is basically an anaerobic environment. Aeration is the key.


If it were otherwise then anyone could have a grand

garden just by dumping on fir needles, as I once envisioned.


No one said it would be easy. It's gonna take a lot of work and nothing
is going to happen overnight, but it is possible, I think.



My galfriend places no faith in her barren pasture at all, and gives her sheep a big bowl of Lamb-Gro twice a day each. Fortunately I'm in no such position.


??? Now you've really lost me. :) Are you now saying that you don't
have to feed because you have a green pasture???


Yes indeed!!!!! Didn't I say that? I was just interested in Tvo's post about sylviculture because around here it seems that something other than clearing high ground to produce a brown pasture might be in order (what most people have).

Bill
S. Oregon coast




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