Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Sure the protein helps, but sometimes experts want us to do something weird, 
as if good growing practice needs some special secret only they know about. 
Let's remember that developing humus-rich soil - black gold - is not rocket 
science. The biological part of soil science is exceedingly complex, but 
getting there with your own soil is not. What Dr. Melendrez pointed out was 
protein-rich crops furnish the best food for the microbes that produce 
glomalin and the aggregate structure (believe I've got that right). In plain 
English, legumes, cover crops, etc. That and minimum tillage then results in 
the moisture and nutrient-holding quality of soil. And this is critically 
important because you get far more for your efforts and inputs.

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net
---------------

The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not 
television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only 
those who know the most about it can appreciate how little we know about it.
   - Aldo Leopold in  Round River, 1933
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 5/23/2006 at 6:43 AM Robert Monie wrote:

>Hi,
>
>  Dr Lee Reich, an ag specialist with Cornell U, often tells beginning
>vegetable gardeners to just lay down a layer of soybean meal over the soil
>(maybe separated by a few layers of newspaper) and plant their seeds in
>that. The soybean meal (like corn gluten) usually kills the weeds and
>conditions the soil well enough to have a decent starter crop. Might this
>be a very primitive example of protein/amino acids at work? Does the
>protein in the soybean meal help create humus?
>
>  Bob Monie
>
>Soilsecrets@aol.com wrote:
>      The best and most sustainable sources for protein are going to be
>the glutens of seed such as from corn, beans and other legumes.  All
>combined to complement the amino acid ratios.
>
>  Dr. Michael