permaculture

[Keith Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com>]

     "Weird" Science #5: Microbes and Soil
     
<http://johnscorner.blogspot.com/2010/11/weird-science-5-microbes-and-soil.html>

You'll love the TED video that accompanies this story.

(Snip)
The human body has about a trillion cells in it. And those trillion 
cells host--either in you or on you--about 10 trillion bacteria. You 
have about 30,000 genes in you; the bacteria you host have about 100 
times the amount of genetic material or information. "So," says 
Bassler, "when I look at you, I think of you as 1 or 10 percent human 
and either 90 or 99 percent bacterial."

In the same way we humans have domesticated and now farm plants and 
animals for our benefit, so (say leading soils researchers) plants 
have established interdependent, symbiotic relationships with most of 
the protozoa, earthworms, arthropods, algae, bacteria, and fungi that 
surround their roots. The plants send food (about half of all the 
carbohydrates and other nutrients they produce) down to their roots
. . . and then, through their roots, they /exude/ these nutrients (in 
a liquid called /exudate/), into the soil. This exudate, in turn, 
feeds the bacteria and other organisms that live in the rhizosphere 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizosphere> (the area of the roots).
(Snip)

Read the complete set at 
http://johnscorner.blogspot.com/search?q=Weird+science

--

Keith Johnson
"Be fruitful and mulch apply."
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 5516, Bloomington, IN 47407
(812) 335-0383
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