permaculture

[Douglas Hinds <cedecor@gmx.net>]

On 03/05/2013 01:39 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
> These days there are machines that automatically analyse DNA of the
> gazillions of micro organisms in soil. They spew out a list of all the
> different species names with relative abundance. I know they are being used
> in Australian universities.

If you'll tell me the name of a university using them I'll contact them, 
although I'm not sure what this signifies. For one thing, Elaine has 
stated that most of the soil's microorganisms haven't even been 
identified yet and if that is the case, the substances they produce, the 
activity of each and the environmental conditions required to produce 
them is information that no one is even looking for, much less have on 
hand, so if the machines you mentioned ARE actually able to identify the 
organisms contained in a given soil same, that wont tell us much able 
who they are and what they do, but it would be a start.

From there, even if the genome of a given organism has been defined 
(which have to be true in order to identify it), that doesn't tell us 
what substances they produce, because a given genome can code for a high 
number of proteins, depending on the environmental conditions, and no 
one is developing a data base to define those relationships in a 
methodical manner, AFAIK.

My point is this:  At whatever point we are able to conclusively 
demonstrate that conventional (chemical) agriculture is on the wrong 
track, we can legislate it out of existence.

(Maybe not in the USA, but who cares)?

At this point in time, my intention is to determine whether 
accomplishing this is feasible , in the foreseeable future (what it 
would take, in terms of equipment and the cost of same).

And meanwhile, we can help farmers to actually make a profit but making 
sure that the conditions required for avoiding crop and market failure 
are met.

Douglas

> > With the soil microorganisms, it depends on how precisely you want to
> > categorize what's there. On the one hand, you can use a microscope to look
> > at the broad groups of organisms (Elaine Ingham's method). This would
> > probably be more practical. You can also use microscopy to quantify
> > mycorrhizal colonization (there's a vinegar and ink method for staining I
> > heard about recently, cheaper and less cancer than the old standard for
> > staining roots). I think you might need two different types of
> > microscopes,
> > though. On the other hand, genetic sequencing is getting cheaper and
> > cheaper and can give you a lot of interesting detailed information. But,
> > if
> > you're partnered with a university, they probably have some of that
> > equipment. I think for identification of the substances the microorganisms
> > are creating, you'd use gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).
> >
> > Alia
> >
> > On Sun, Mar 3, 2013 at 7:14 PM, Douglas Hinds <cedecor@gmx.net> wrote:
> >
> > > On 03/03/2013 03:25 PM, Chris Carnevale wrote:
> > > > Hi Douglas,
> > > >
> > > > I'm not sure about what kind of equipment you would need, but certainly
> > > > soil testing would be important.
> > > Particularly to quantify the presence of nutritional elements and the
> > > microorganisms that constitute the soil food web.
> > >
> > > I would also like to be able to identify the substances being created by
> > > those organisms, the activity of each substance and define the
> > > conditions required for the production of same.