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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] N-starvation and mulch

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  • From: Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] N-starvation and mulch
  • Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:21:34 -0700

why (apparently) mulch materials don't cause N-starvation for plants in contrast to just laying other types of organic matter just on top of the soil?


I haven't found any evidence in the science world that top-dressing carbon rich material causes N in the soil to migrate upward and get bound-up in a decomposition cycles (temporarily unavailable in a particular location). Free N available in the 'soil solution' as NH4 or NO3 is dissolved in water or weakly bound to organics or clay. Water mostly goes downward. More likely is that nitrogen sloughing out of a complex mulch migrates into the root zone.
Plant roots go foraging for Nitrogen and will go where the N is, taking advantage of variation in the soil, trading with fungi, following an earthworm burrow, curling around the husk of a beetle. I think the 'nitrogen starvation' idea has taken on a life of its own without a lot of solid evidence. I think the concept started with the problem of evenly tilling in woody material in annual agriculture as a soil amendment across a whole root zone causing a temporary deficit of free N while the woody stuff is broken down.

Paul Cereghino
Olympia, WA




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