Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Robert Monie <bobm20001@yahoo.com>]

Hi Paul,

 

Soy can be overused, as Miranda points out, and it can even smell like horse manure when it gets wet or soggy for long periods.

 

But I think Dr. Lee Reich had several quick and simple lessons in mind when he advised beginning veggie growers to put a little paper on the ground and plant the seeds in soybean meal:

 

1) Don't worry about killing weeds; the paper (if not the soy) will do that (so forget Roundup etc).

 

2) Don't fret about getting the exact blend of nutrients in the fertilizer (the way hydoponic growers do, for example); soy will take care of everything including trace elements.

 

3) Use organic materials like soy and the plants will grow; trust nature--it has been growing things for a long, long time and it will grow them again.

 

Some of Dr. Melendez's humus products (e.g TurfPro)  use a top dressing of mixed vegetable proteins and crushed crustaean shells (Protein Crumblies), to provide both protein and NKP minerals and to stimulate the growth of the glomalin fungi. This may be similar to the role performed by Dr. Reich's top dressing of soybean meal.

 

Some farmers who do no-till and keep the fields covered year-round with rotating cover crops favor legumes like hairy vetch, clover and fava or bell beans (if there is enough cold weather to support them) or cowpeas or black eye peas (especially for warm weather). It would come as no surprise to them that these legumes improve the soil tilth and increase humus content, though they might be hard-pressed to describe the

microbiological processes that make this possible.

 

With the new knowledge of  the glycoprotein glomalin and the role of fungi in feeding the plant, one would hope that comparative studies would be underway to find which cover crops do the best job of increasing humus and glomalin in the soil. Is anyone aware of such studies?

 

Bob Monie, New Orleans, LA 

 

 

 

Soy can be overused as Miriam points out and it can even smell like horse manure
when it gets wet and soggy for long periods.
TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net> wrote:

> 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. .... 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. 
>
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