Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Marty Kraft <martyk@allspecies.org>]

The house sparrow and the starling were imported into the US from 
Europe to deal with insect pests and reproduced everywhere. The more 
aggressive African bee was imported to South America for "science" and 
was turned loose. Rabbits were introduced into Australia and became a 
problem. House cats have caused the extinction of many animals ti 
Pacific island habitats.

We know so little about ecology. We do not know the consequences of 
transplanting soil organisms from one ecosystem to another.

My intuitive leaning would be to gather the best soil from my own or 
near by watersheds in similar ecosystems, culture them and add them to 
my garden. I would try to error on the side of humility. Near by 
organisms should be the best adapted to your ecosystem. Just thinking 
about the various ecosystems and the millions of organisms that work 
dynamically to reach balance is like looking at the milky way on a 
summer night. Awesome!

Of course this throws open the whole idea of buying soil organisms for 
inoculation. What you are suggesting may be happening anyway.

Marty Kraft
Kansas City
On Jul 6, 2006, at 10:01 PM, Greg Bell wrote:

> With all the talk about good fungi and bacteria, and the realization 
> that
> not all helpful ones occur in a given soil (ie. innoculation is 
> needed),
> would it be a good idea to simply collect good soil samples when you
> travel, and innoculate your own soil with everything you can find?
>
> Go on a hike, find some good soil, make some tea out of it and water it
> in... travel to Idaho, find some good soil, do the same.  I'm thinking 
> on
> a garden scale, where a handful in your pocket would do.
>
> Crazy/dump idea or good idea?
>
> ~gb
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