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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Thinking about poops

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Thinking about poops
  • Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2010 13:10:35 -0700 (PDT)

--- On Sat, 9/4/10, Harvey Ussery <harvey@themodernhomestead.us> wrote:
> poops also carry a huge load of microbes, added in the gut
> of the chicken. Does anybody know whether these microbes
> *survive* their deposition onto/incorporation into the soil?
> Do they continue as living members of the soil food web,
> making the same kinds of contributions to fertility?

Hi Harvey,

I have wondered about similar questions myself, but can’t really provide a
qualified answer since I’m not a microbiologist. According to my undoubtedly
very simplified understanding, there are many different types of microbes and
each type requires very specific conditions for thriving. In other words,
the microbes in the guts of your chicken are different from those decomposing
organic matter in soil, which are again different from those feeding plants
by colonizing the feeder roots of plants. Hence, what is “surviving” is not
the individual microbe species but the remains of those microbes which feed
the next type of microbes in the life cycles of the ecosystem made up by
soil, plants and animals.

I think most types of microbes will occur spontaneously if conditions
(habitat and food) are right. In other words, if you feed your soil with
wood chips, fungi will occur spontaneously provided there is air and
humidity, if you use hay to feed your soil, a different type of microbe will
occur, with chicken poop again a different type will occur. The same applies
for planting, when you sow a legume, one type of bacteria will occur; with
salads or other veggies a different type will attach itself to the feeder
roots.

All we can do is to provide the right conditions, if they don’t occur
naturally; we can provide humidity, air and most of all food, i.e. organic
matter. The question really is how we change the soil environment by using
different types of organic matter and how does that impact on plant growth.
Is it preferable to feed perennial plants with woody material to create a
fungi-dominated soil, or to feed annuals with hay or manure? I don’t have
feedstock; hence I mostly use mulches of grass, weeds, plant residues and
shredded branches to feed my soil without manure. I found that I can grow
most of our food that way, with the notable exceptions of cabbages and
melons, which need a bit of extra compost. I know that for most vegetables,
I could probably get a higher yield if I used manure and/or fertilizer, but
since I grow mostly for our own consumption, yield is not an issue. There is
always more than we can eat.

There are some, especially in the biodynamic community, who claim that food
crops like cabbages will decline over a period of several years if manure is
not used. If that is correct, it would suggest that manure (including
chicken poop) adds something essential to soil that cannot be added by hay or
plant residues. I’m not sure since I haven’t been very successful at saving
cabbages seeds. For most other plants, I can attest that there is no decline
even after ten years and that most vegetables get better over time (even
without manure) as the soil is improved and I keep on saving seeds.

Dieter Brand
Portugal










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