Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Catherine Fenner" <c1fenner@comcast.net>]

Nancy,

I'm confused about the confusion here. I would normally let this drop, and I
will after this, but I am still struck by the absolute need for a few people
in that GardenWeb thread to misinform other potential active composters by
telling them that composting produces less humus then just letting plant
material lay where it fell.

Humus is the end product of microbes breaking down organic material so it
interacts with minerals. 

I wonder if you're thinking that compost is an end product. It's not. You
can't take well-composted material devoid of soil and grow healthy plants in
it. I've tried it myself and I've seen others try it and it doesn't work
because all of the materials necessary are not there.

You also cannot take a pile of leaves off the forest floor and grow healthy
plants in it. I'm not talking mushrooms here. You don't layer 3 feet of
grass, leaves and straw on a slab and grow corn. On the forest floor
organisms break down the organic matter into such small pieces that it's
eventually pulled into the mineral base. Then it becomes humus.

So yes, microbes form a symbiotic relationship to form humus. Microbes are
algae, bacteria, nematodes, fungi and protozoa. Perhaps you're thinking that
the heat of a compost pile affects living organisms adversely and therefore
sheet composting is more appropriate. The heat does affect activity but when
one type of microorganism drops off due to too much heat, differing moisture
environment, or salinity level, others step in and take up the slack. This
dance continues. It is incorrect to think that anaerobic organisms "do the
job."

I don't like fighting over things like this, and I'd prefer to stay away
from bad feelings and name calling. (I took Paul's link of the dark side of
the beverage as a responsible and caring addition.)  Perhaps you would
prefer to sheet compost and I prefer active composting. In my mind the only
difference is that I want my plant diseases killed and I want more compost
produced more quickly so that once it's applied to soil humus results.

If you stack a cubic yard of random plant material next to a cubic yard of
properly combined moistened and oxygenated plant material and let the second
pile heat up, turn it and heat up again, you will end up with a far smaller
batch of heat-activated compost then the passive pile. But that does not
imply that heat produces less humus. It just means that there's more volume
in the first pile then the second; not that there will be less humus
manufactured once added to soil.

Catherine
 

-----Original Message-----
2nd, I read, sort of understand that we know the microbes, some  
working with others, form the humus.  That's why I brought up the  
idea of SCOBYs and Kefir grains.  I was not inquiring about the  
safety of its use as a food item, silly.  I was suggesting the  
symbiotic culture of more than one micro organism that produces the  
SCOBY/Grains parallels the formation of humus by another relationship  
between multiple types of microbes.