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The Great Mineral Debate

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The Great Mineral Debate The Great Mineral Debate Can biology alone provide what degraded soils need? This would be crafted to explore the divide between “biology provides” and “depleted soils need something.” See the section on Mineral Investment on pages 81-87 in Mycorrhizal Planet. It’s always fun when I unleash a presentation in a new direction. There will be a solid examination of what’s worth spending money on to regenerate soils. • Elaine and the Soil Food Web • Soil testing ad finitum • Farmer intuition and the budget 1 A Healthy Ecosystem • Biodiversity • Populations balanced between consumer and producer species • High nutrient recycling • Long term stability Agricultural Reckoning • Soil disturbance • Harvest takeaway • Fertility investment • Impact on biology • Diversity through polycultures • Perennial systems • Grower mindset • Mutual discovery 2 Healthy Plant Metabolism Does this flow from paying heed to soil chemistry ratios? Or is it the biology that delivers plant nutrition in balanced form? And what about the concept of “foliar feeding”? 3 Nurture the soil-dwelling microorganisms, and your crops look after themselves. 4 The Soil Food Web Microbe “feeding frenzy” keeps the immobilization / mineralization balance humming right along. soil food web 5 As most of us have realised, soil is not merely a prop for plants or 'terra firma' for the biosphere; it is an infinitely complex underworld and inter-dependent web of micro- organisms such as bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes and micro-arthropods to name a few. It is this hidden world that allows our planet and our society to thrive. It is every bit as important to our health as breath itself. But far from nurturing the soil that feeds us, agriculture often destroys it. Every time the soil is disturbed, or artificial fertilisers and pesticides are applied, soil life is killed and soil structure compromised. But Ingham also goes further. She has no time for wasting money on soil tests, pointing out that during her lifetime the number of plant nutrients considered to be essential has increased from 3 to more than 40. Who can say what a plant needs, except the plant itself? 6 Disdain for Inputs Applying this mineral or that fertiliser, Ingham says, is also a waste of money. Assays of plant tissues reveal that the nutrients present bear no relationship whatsoever to any soluble artificial nutrients applied. A plant requires all nutrients to a greater or lesser extent, and only it knows what it needs and when - the trick is having all those nutrients in a bio-available form in the soil at all times. Rethinking pH She also blows away the myth of pH, the measure of soil acidity or alkalinity. Since when, she asks, has nature said a pH 6.5 is ideal for crops, when they grow successfully in ranges from 5.5-11? Soil pH varies so widely even along a root hair that an average value is meaningless. It isn't the soil pH that needs analysing, it's the soil's microbial life. 7 Availability of Minerals Relative to pH Strongly Strongly Without biology, Acid Acid Acid Acid Alkaline Slightly Slightly Medium Medium Alkaline Alkaline Alkaline Very Slightly Very Slightly Very you are stuck with NITROGEN pH as the sole PHOSPHORUS arbiter of what is POTASSIUM available to plant SULFUR roots, as indicated CALCIUM to the left. But add MAGNESIUM organisms, and IRON MANGANESE plant nutrition is no BORON longer ruled by COPPER and ZINK chemistry alone. MOLYBDENIUM 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5 8.08.5 9.0 9.5 10.0 pH Mineral Banking Even more controversially, Ingham points out that all soils on the planet have enough (inorganic) nutrients locked up in their mineral particles (that is, particles derived from rocks) to feed plants for the next 10,000 billion years. What?! 8 Soil Life is the Answer The only reason the Green Revolution worked is that it fed dirt, not soil. Sustainable intensification? Forget it. It won't work because it can't: it still relies on the chemical inputs that destroy soil life. Get your soil biology right, and you don't need to spread manure, rotate crops or till soil. (At this point, even the organic farmers at the Oxford conference winced.) Plants use sunlight to make sugars; they then send most of these to their roots as exudates (substances that ooze out from plant tissue) - or, as Ingham puts it, they deliver 'cakes and cookies' to the soil for aerobic bacteria and fungi to feed on, encouraging them to amass around the roots and prosper. 9 aerated compost tea 6 weeks after sod was laid with compost tea below and on the sod. Roots were less than ½ inch, now 6 inches deep into the soil. No erosion, no weeds, no disease 10 Three Important Functions • Organisms form a protective army to fight off anaerobic micro-organisms responsible for soil diseases. • Organisms contain the necessary enzymes and acids to break down and transform inorganic nutrients in soil particles into organic nutrients suitable for plants. • Organisms play a critical role in the formation of soils' structure, which is necessary for water retention, preventing the leaching of nutrients. Why, then, do you need an armoury of chemicals when nature has already provided a ready-made solution? 11 At this stage, the nutrients that plants need are still locked up in the microorganisms, and are only released when the latter die. To enable this, nature has evolved predators - creatures that eat other creatures for their food - to create food chains and thus ensure constant nutrient recycling. In this case, the predators are protozoa, which eat bacteria, nematodes and micro-arthropods, which eat fungi. These predators then excrete the excess nutrients - now bio- available - into the surrounding soil, creating a constantly replenishing supply of food around the plant roots, where they are needed. Clever, isn't it? “Mother Nature doesn't need human beings, but we need Mother Nature.” ̶ Elaine Ingham 12 farm composting It follows that what grows where is a good indicator of your soil biology; and it provides clues to where the imbalances might be in the soil, which are preventing you from growing the best crops you can. Again, the simple, quick and easy way to fix this is to 'inoculate' the soil with the correct compost. This is why compost is the nearest farming gets to a cure- all: it holds the key to sustaining life. It's cheap and easy, and as soils become self-sustaining, the problems go away and crops are more productive - they become stronger, healthier and more nutritionally dense. 13 Soil Life Testing • Microscopes reveal who’s who in a broad species sense, allowing us to assay things like fungal biomass to bacterial biomass. • Percent of root colonization by mycorrhizal fungi. • DNA testing can reveal specific species 14 Soil biological succession causes plant succession Bacteria …A few Fungi……Balanced ……..More Fungi…… Fungi Bacteria: 10 µg 100 µg 500 600 µg 500 µg 700 µg Fungi: 0 µg 10 µg 250 600 µg 800 µg 7000 µg Forms of nutrients: Critical to understand NO3………..…...balanced………………..NH4 NO3 and NH4 Protozoa.....B-f…..F-f…..Predatory…..Microarthropods Nematodes 15 Others are convinced good mineral nutrition requires a human touch. Mineral Investment Rock dusts and blended organic fertilizers bring requisite nutrients into the picture. Trace mineral deficiencies can be addressed as needed. 16 Mineral Investment Proper sampling Soil Testing procedure Different labs emphasize different strengths acids to extract nutrients: • Mehlich results given in ppm • Modified Morgan given in lbs/acre 17 Soil Chemistry: Nutrient Pools • Total Nutrients – not normally reported – Grind, complete digestion and combustion • Exchangeable Nutrients (Melick 3, Ammonium Acetate 1N) – Strong extracting agents, but not ALL nutrients • Soluble Nutrients – Extracts soil solution or water soluble nutrients – Available nutrients – made available how? • Plant Tissue Tests – Total chemical components….. Balanced? • Organic matter fuels the biology. Basic Soil Get OM to 3% at a bare minimum. Values • Get that pH in the 6.3–6.7 range. • Do this in the context of cation balance based on the CEC number for your soil. 18 Organic Matter once upon a time Ahem. It’s important that we recognize pre-sapiens potential when it comes to organic matter. Measurements from Australia in the 1840’s tallied in at 11 to 37 percent OM. about that pH thing • Measure of the acidity/ alkalinity of soil • Ties to range of exchangeable nutrients • Moving target even in the best of times 19 Exchangeable Nutrient Sites Positively charged elements (called cations) can be held for transfer to the soil solution for uptake by plants and/or utilized by microbes and then transferred to plants in the form of bacterial metabolites and fungal exudates. Cation Exchange Capacity • Exchangeable cations include calcium, magnesium, and potassium. • Exchange potential is rated numerically. • Sandy soils which are nutrient-porous have a lower CEC than heavy clay soils. 20 Albrecht Fertility Ratios • Base saturation ratios ideally fall along the lines of 70:10:3+ for a loamy soil with a midrange cation exchange capacity. • Calcium levels from an ecological ag perspective start at 2000 lbs/acre … and pushing 3000 lbs/acre if not more can be a worthy investment over time. Calcium Baseline Calcium levels from an ecological ag perspective start at Conversion formula 2000 lbs/acre … for Ca looks like this: and pushing 3000 2 x ppm = lbs/acre lbs/acre if not more can be a worthy investment over time. 21 Consideration of fertility ratios Cation Balance begins with knowing CEC Sandy and clay soils require wriggle room here: Mg pulls soil particles closer whereas Ca spreads soil particles apart Cation Fertility Ratios • Those blessed with loam will find that 70:10:3+ helps solve calcium deficiency issues (ie., bitter pit in pome fruits) • Sandy soils (with a low CEC) need extra Mg thereby shifting this to 68:16:3-4 • Heavy clay soils (with a high CEC) benefit from extra Ca along the lines of 76:10:4-5 22 The Art of Liming² Incorporation Phase Maintenance Phase • Lime moves down • Lower rates as now into the soil a mere working with active inch a year.
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