Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Kathy Moore" <anichinimoore@hotmail.com>]

What do you think of the practice of routinely burning fields of straw (crop 
residue) and to control cedars?  People here believe burning helps the soil. 
 I think it cause respiratory problems and kills off mycorrhizae, etc.  
Their argument is Native Americans burned the prairie to create grass for 
the buffalo.  Is there literature I could read that shows alternatives to 
burning?  Are there other alternatives I might try to educate others about?
Kathy Moore


From: Soilsecrets@aol.com
Reply-To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing 
<livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [Livingontheland] life cycle of mycorrhizae
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:12:19 EDT

There's a lot of mystery to the Mycorrhizal relationship that plants have,
resulting in many misconceptions and misinformation.  The Pacific Northwest
Rainforest is a cool forest that favors fungi for the decomposition of 
organic
matter, which is slow process.  Bacterial Humification is still part of the
system but is not as active as the fungal decomposition.  Consequently, the
total amount of humus or Humic substances that accumulate in the Northwest
forest floor is less per 100,000 calories of biomass recycling than will be  
found
in the Great Plains Tall Grass Prairie.  I other words if you have  exactly
the same amount of organic biomass when comparing the calorie value of  the
biomass, the hot grassland Ecotone will favor a bacterial Humification  
resulting
in more humus than the NW Rain Forest.  Therefore the large  fungal network
that Marty speaks of are actually more likely to be Saprophytic  fungi 
involved
with the decomposition of woody lignin parts of dead organic  matter and can
be seen by the naked eye during certain times of the year.   The mycorrhizal
fungi for the most part are very small and not so visible and  are more
involved with feeding their host plant water and mineral  nutrients.  
Mycorrhizae
feeding tubes or filaments do not venture far from  the point of 
articulation
with the host plant roots.

When soils are destroyed by construction, fire or other events the
mycorrhizae will return as do the native plants, but the process is very 
slow.  For
that reason, viable inoculation products that have been studied by  
universities
have found consistent benefits by using these products in  landscapes, golf
courses, tree farms and even on Organic Farms that have been  well managed 
and
organic for decades.  We also see the same thing happen  when we put  a pure
biologically viable humus into a Pacific Northwest Soil  that you would 
think is
already rich in humus, huge benefits are derived.

Michael M. Melendrez


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