permaculture

[georg <georg@2012.org>]

At 21:56 22.02.00 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
>Still interested in a definition of ethylene cycles.
>

did this get lost somehow? ok, here we go again:


------
At 09:27 21.02.00 -0300, you wrote:
>(emphasis is on 'living' as this keeps the
>> oxygen-ethylene cycles going).
>
>
>Does someone have it on their computer ?  I would most appreciate this
>help..
>

unfortunately i do not recall it easily either, but i do have it on my
website (unfortunately it is the german translation of emilia hazelip's
essay) <http://www.2012.org/publishing/synag/index.html>. i just read it
through, but it is too long and too complicated for me right now to
translate it. it would take me hours, that i do not have to spare right
now. but it involves alternating cycles of oxygenated and ethylenated
micro-niches, caused by microorganisms that need the carbon-excretions of
living roots. they consume all the oxygen and produce ethylen (provided
there isn't too much nitrates present, n in form of ammonium causes no
trouble). the ethylene stops the microbes life-activities, without killing
them. so shortly thereafter the oxygen oozes back in, microbes get going
again and it starts all over, all the time in a microscopic mosaic - in
living soils that have very little nitrates, plenty of living rootlets and
dead plant material present. the presence of oxygen prohibits the stable
iron-oxyde crystals (2-12% by weight of most soils) to change to the more
volatile reduced iron, which also prohibts that they liberate the
phosphates, sulphates and trace elements that they bind to themselves via
electrical charge in their iron-oxide form. when oxygen flows back they
change back to those stable oxide crystals and also bind the nutrients
again, but in between the plants had a chance to absorb some of it. and
usually these cycles go on and on and on... except in soils that are not
covered with live plants (carbo excreting roots everywhere) AND dead plant
matter. 

well, i guess this is coming close.

georg