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  • From: Nan Hildreth <NanHildreth AT riseup.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>, "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Easy soil fertility test
  • Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:59:14 -0500

Yes, Dr. Shoemaker, many weeds evolved to fit a niche: disturbed or depleted soil said Dr. Elaine Ingham. Good soil thwarts weeds and plant diseases, she said.

In her class last month I scribbled notes like mad for the 2 days because this was so new to me. So it's good to try to explain it to you.

Weeds are typically more primitive plants than crops, says Elaine. Bermuda grass, she said is primitive grass that thrives when soil life is primitive, that is, three times more bacteria than fungal biomass. Weeds evolved to grow quick and produce tons of seeds then die. Weeds invest only 20% of their energy in roots while veggies invest 75%, fruit trees 80%.

Plants and soil biology co-evolved. Higher plants need higher soil life, that is more fungus than bacteria. Higher plants feed soil life with sugars from the roots. Half their energy goes into "root exudates" of sugars, carbohydrates and proteins that nurture symbiotic soil life. Ingham said plants putting out these "cakes and pies" for symbiotic soil results in them forming a "castle wall" around roots.

So you can grow more crops less weeds if your soil life is thriving and mature instead of abused.

Weeds also co-evolved to thrive where there is too much fertility she said. Thistle, she said, needs 50ppm nitrogen to even germinate. Nutsedge 10 ppm. But unlike veggies, they thrive if fertility comes in "pulses" for example, people throwing out fertilizer now and then. Johnson grass, dandelions too, she said. Weeds also like bad compost better than veggies. That is, compost that got too hot from too much manure, went anaerobic, and looks ashy or grey, she said.

Your feedback appreciated.

Nan


At 07:42 AM 11/1/2010, Bill Shoemaker wrote:
>
>BTW, Dr. Bill, weeds are plants that thrive in half-dead soil with
>lots of chemical fertilizers according to Elaine Ingham of
>www.soilfoodweb.com She says they don't mind their nutrients
>coming in pulses.


After fighting weeds for decades, I've come to respect them as competitors who are finely adapted to the situation they find themselves in. If the soil is half-dead, they will still out-compete crops, but they'll have more difficulty doing it. They aren't aliens, or mutants. They're just exceptionally well adapted native plants.

By the way, many of the plants we fight as weeds have been used as food by native peoples in the past, such as lambsquarter, pigweed, purslane, etc. They are "undeveloped" as weeds, so they have all their genetic resources for competing in the environments they prefer. Once we start developing them as crops, we strip away genetic traits which work to their advantage as "weeds" to gain productivity, yield and size. Later on, we begin to look to their native ancestors to recover many of those "stripped" traits for resistance, improved nutrition, competitive ability, etc. Examples include western hemisphere crops like tomatoes, peppers, squash, corn, as well as eatsern hemisphere crops, such as apples, or wheat.

Bill


William H Shoemaker, UI-Crop Sciences
Sr Research Specialist, Food Crops
St Charles Horticulture Research Center
535 Randall Road St Charles, IL 60174
630-584-7254; FAX-584-4610
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Nan Hildreth, Houston 713-842-6643
www.HoustonClimateProtection.org

Make Soil, End Global Warming

"We could end global warming if we restored the fertility in the soils in the state of California." Dr. Elaine Ingham, www.soilfoodweb.com

"...global warming can be reversed by restoring biodiversity in the soils and in the ocean. ... There is enough land to sequester this carbon and it could be done in a decade or two. ... Now that the Oil Age is coming to an end, we are entering the Soil Age. " http://groups.google.com/group/soil-age

"... a 1.6% increase in organic content of soils humans manage would restore atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to normal." says Allan Yeomans in http://www.youtube.com/user/AllanYeomans1#p/a/u/0/-o2N6vJDLpE Free download of his book http://www.yeomansplow.com.au/priority-one-contents.htm

"Soil is the new frontier" Eaarth by Bill McKibben




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