Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

I don't write as a soil expert but as a learner. It's my understanding that
most plants form symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizal fungi, and it's
the fungal hyphae that produces the glomalin that aggregates clay particles
with certain elements and biological compounds that ends in what we call
humus. This does not happen in the compost pile but in the soil with plant
roots. Finished compost is not humus. 

You say
> If compost then  
>gets disturbed to add to garden or field, then again there is a risk  
>to losing any humus that has formed, because it will get exposed to  
>the air.
and
>You just stated that oxygen breaks down humus.  That is why I suggest  
>not turning a pile to heat it up (oxidize?).  Am I correct in  
>believing that if it's necessary to get air into a pile to make it  
>heat up, then it's the oxygen that's allowing the the process that  
>heats up the pile to take place, therefore it is oxidizing the pile?
>

As I said, humus isn't formed in the compost pile, but in the soil with
plant roots. Turning the compost to aid in heating and speed decomposition
won't oxidize humus that isn't there yet. 

Some interesting sites on glomalin
http://ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2003/030205.htm
http://invam.caf.wvu.edu/methods/mycorrhizae/glomalin.htm
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/oct97/glomalin1097.htm
http://abstracts.co.allenpress.com/pweb/esa2000/abstracts/MAT-3-58-40.html

And esp Organic Matter, Humus, and the Soil Foodweb at
http://attra.org/attra-pub/PDF/soilmgmt.pdf


I hope that helps.

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 7/2/2006 at 3:24 PM Nancy Babbitt wrote:

>Paul,
>
>> Actually we do have something on how humus is formed, as I posted  
>> before.
>> http://www.soilsecrets.com/SoilEcologyandtheSoilFoodWeb.pdf
>> http://www.petrik.com/PUBLIC/library/ups.html#humus
>1st link doesn't work.
>
>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.
>>
>> Laying the compost materials as a ground cover is called sheet  
>> composting.
>> http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/homecompost/methods.html#4
>Sheet composting, is most closely what I am speaking of, but not  
>tilling it into the soil, as described in the link.  Simply laying  
>the material on top of the soil, as in Ruth Stout's deep mulch  
>method.  No Till, also.  Removing spent plants by cutting at soil  
>level so as not to disturb the soil.  When weeding, removing and  
>laying them on top of the soil to act as a mulch, and compost.
>> You said
>>> Using finished compost as the cover would simply supply less of what
>>> was originally used as composting ingredients, therefore less for
>>> nature to use, therefore less humus.
>>
>> Are  you advocating not composting, just turning everything under?
>I am not really advocating composting or not, I am simply suggesting  
>that gardening or farming by imitating nature may be the key to  
>producing humus in the largest possible quantity.  If compost then  
>gets disturbed to add to garden or field, then again there is a risk  
>to losing any humus that has formed, because it will get exposed to  
>the air.
>> Or
>> leaving everything on top?  As we've seen there are drawbacks to  
>> turning
>> under, one of which is, the more cultivation, the more soil humus is
>> exposed to air which oxidizes and breaks it down, leaving soil less
>> moisture absorbent and more prone to leaching of nutrients.
>You just stated that oxygen breaks down humus.  That is why I suggest  
>not turning a pile to heat it up (oxidize?).  Am I correct in  
>believing that if it's necessary to get air into a pile to make it  
>heat up, then it's the oxygen that's allowing the the process that  
>heats up the pile to take place, therefore it is oxidizing the pile?
>
>If I remember correctly (and I may not) that more humus is formed  
>when the plant material is broken down in a wet environment.  That  
>implies that it's the anaerobic  microbes doing the job.
>
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