Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Ken Hargesheimer <minifarms2@yahoo.com>]

Today in the ATTRA News was the following article.

 

When Soil is Plowed

Dr. Elaine Ingham, describes an undisturbed grassland—where a wide diversity of plants grow, their roots mingling with a wide diversity of soil organisms—and how it changes when it is plowed.

 

A typical teaspoon of native grassland soil contains between 600 million and 800 million individual bacteria that are members of perhaps 10,000 species.  Several miles of fungi are in that teaspoon of soil, as well as 10,000 individual protozoa.  There are 20 to 30 beneficial nematodes from as many as 100 species. Root-feeding nematodes are quite scarce in truly healthy soils.  They are present, but in numbers so low that it is rare to find them.

 

After only one plowing, a few species of bacteria and fungi disappear because the food they need is no longer put back in the system.  But for the most part, all the suppressive organisms, all the nutrient cyclers, all the decomposers, all the soil organisms that rebuild good soil structure are still present and trying to do their jobs.

 

Why doesn't the reduced food supply have a greater effect?  A good savings account of organic matter has been built up in native grassland and native forest soil.  The soil organisms use the organic matter they "put away" all those years when disturbance did not occur.

 

But agricultural tillage continues to deplete soil organic matter and kill fungi. The larger predators are crushed, their homes destroyed.  The bacteria go through a bloom and blow off huge amounts of that savings-account organic matter.  With continued tillage, the "policemen" (organisms) that compete with and inhibit disease are lost.  The "architects" that build soil aggregates are lost.  So are the "engineers"—the larger organisms that design and form the larger pores in soil.  The predators that keep bacteria, fungi, and root-feeding organisms in check are lost.  Disease suppression declines, soil structure erodes, and water infiltration decreases because mineral crusts form. (From "Replacing Methyl Bromide with Compost." BioCycle, December 1998)

 

If this does convince gardeners and farmers TO STOP DIGGING AND PLOWING, I give up.

 

Ken Hargesheimer

 

I have used newspapers [all use soy inks] and cardboard. That is great to kill bad grass [bermuda here].  It works.  In my opinion it adds little to the soil due to low volume.

 

In the garden I prefer to intercrop a gm/cc with vegetables in rows.  One has to play-it-by-ear and adapt it to what one is planting, when, etc.

 

Go to: http://bibledvd.googlepages.com/home and www.nabuur.com

---

Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls.  Great rates starting at 1¢/min.