A Quality

CULTIVATING A QUALITY SOIL BY OPTIMIZING NATURAL SOIL-PLANT- EXCHANGE CYCLES USING RAMIAL CHIPPED WOOD (RCW)

By Jacques Hébert, March 2013

The best found in nature are those of river alluvium. Upstream land erosion has brought silt that enriches the land along the rivers. Leaving nature to itself, it would take only a few years before forest grows back. The forest maintains the life cycles of the soil. Fallen leaves and twigs are recycled layer by layer, year after year. Fungi turn this fresh material into soluble mineral salts used by plants. The transformation uses enzymes, like in the stomach. Microflora and microfauna also play a role in this cyclic transformation. Trees, like plants, spread their top growth (aerial part) to act like a solar collector. Through photosynthesis, plants create polysaccharides (sugars) that are channelled downward and feeding, among others, fungi that transform them into mineral salts for plants and other forms of soil life. Fungi do not photosynthesize. They rely on plants to do so. There is symbiosis, a constructive codependence in all components coordinated as a whole that can be called a food web, which is a life cycle. Such good conditions produce a high-quality mull soil.

You must understand that when you start gardening in a new site, the soil is far from being of such good quality. Our goal is to recreate this type of soil and preserve the quality.

I have developed, in my compost, a crop similar to that mull type of humus. I enrich this Ramial Chipped Wood (RCW) crop, mainly fresh climax (noble deciduous trees). I add about 2 to 3% of clay that I dissolve in the substrate. The clay creates my clay-humic complex.

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Clay minerals mixed with humus form the clay-humic complex (CHC). In principle clay and humus are negatively charged. Therefore, they should repel each other. The connection between the clay and the humus is made by positive ions. However, this electric connection is unstable and cannot last. Glomalin was discovered in 1996 by Sara F. Wright. Fungi produce this glomalin, a glue-like substance, positively charged, that stabilizes the CHC. This glomalin is a hydrophobic thermotolerant glycoprotein with the property of stocking carbon in the form of proteins and carbohydrates. It slowly decomposes and accumulates in soil making mineral salts available for plants. Therefore, it results in a nutrient reserve (bank) available in the soil to feed plants and soil microorganisms. Glomalin retains water and favors gas exchanges allowing soil aeration. The CHC, through glomalin, is a major component of . Earthworms also produce glomalin naturally. Like fungi, they develop enzymes. Earthworms can ingest up to 10% of surface living soil every year. Their faeces are pure compost. Everyone knows that earthworms are contributing to soil ventilation. We generate a humus-rich soil. Rich humus brings more earthworms and therefore more globalin. In this way, life cycles are enhanced. It is no coincidence that I have been working with clays and fungi combined with RCW for decades.

Whether it is in the pile of compost or into the ground, saprophytic fungi work as follows: “These fungi secrete enzymes and acids that degrade large molecules of dead plants into simpler molecules, which the fungi can reassemble into building blocks, such as polysaccharides, for cell walls. From dead plants, fungi recycle carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and minerals into nutrients for living plants, insects, and other organisms sharing that habitat.” (Stamet, 2005) I always mix part of my old compost crop with fresh deciduous RCW. Thus, microorganisms that are already active are transported to this new substrate “rejuvenated” by fresh RCW. It is preferable to use versatility of tree species for your RCW. Each species bring special characters, to compost as well as mulch. For example, Quercus bring phosphatases, among other things. Similarly, it is preferable to use several saprophytic fungus varieties in the compost, which brings different characters and value to the substrate. Orchestrating fungi cultivation makes all the difference. Otherwise, it is more random according to whether or not your environment contains fungi that can be used for transformation processes. Again, you can rely on your fungi cultivation to colonize your piles of compost, as for me, I do prefer to colonize them by mycelia inoculation at the right time in the transformation process and with the right temperature. You can also do this by spores.

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aAfter thin 12layer years of deciduous: planting bedRCW soil every always year. very fertile with no additional compost or fertilizer, only

aAfter thin 15layer years of deciduous: planting bedRCW soil every always year. very fertile with no additional compost or fertilizer, only

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