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Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

nature.com

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Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#71

Post by hinkley »

goeiedaggoeie wrote: post #69
hinkley wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason chemical fertilizers work is because they provide minerals that a plant might normally trade sugars to fungi to get. So those sugars stay in the plant making larger fruits, nuts, or legumes. But the problem is you also get water and early/late season sugars exchanged between plants (Simard et al). So within a generation the soil structure has collapsed, you’re at the whim of every microdrought, and you’re…

great post. I posted in this thread above about using a Lomi to convert our organic waste into organic fertilizer (along with a worm farm), a and cultivating nitrogin fixing bacteria with our outdoor fish pond and a flood and drain system. Soil is great to grow in, if you treat it well.

I will say that my only problem with Simard is that she anthropomorphizes the fungi and the behaviors she documented could just as easily be explained by osmotic pressure. Chemicals in a solution of water have “fairness” built into them. The broker doesn’t need to have a strategy for exchange, just siphon off a finder’s fee for making the introductions. The magic is low friction channels that can move solutions over a long (for a single celled organism) distance. That’s magic enough for any kingdom of life.

Sugary sap? Water will enter and sugars flow out. High nitrogen content? Same same.

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#73

Post by jimbokun »

elcritch wrote: post #65
marginalia_nu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I get the feeling you gotta tie your research to AI in some tenuous fashion to get research funding.

It’s not a feeling. Getting grants requires following whatever hype trend is popular at the moment. Savvy academics know this and respond accordingly. Whether it’s AI (now) or DEI stuff (until recently), they add the required little sections and play the game.

I bet AI is really good at writing grant proposals with all the right buzz words.

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#74

Post by econ »

Humans can figure out a lot given enough time. While all the hype for us is finance, management, machines, electronics and software etc it is not unthinkable a previous civilization went all in on soil. Terra Preta seems to be quite sophisticated.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#75

Post by wswope »

cellular wrote: post #20
ralusek wrote: post #10

I'm a gardening and landscaping enjoyer, but I am constantly confused about the bordering magical thinking surrounding dirt, among other aspects of growing things. If you look at hydroponics/aeroponics, plants basically need water, light, and fertilizer (N (nitrogen) P (phosphorous) K (potassium), and a few trace minerals). It can be the most synthetic process you've ever seen, and the plants will grow amazingly well…

I am terraforming my limestone rocky terrain using leaves. I believe they have trace minerals and the grub larve eat the oak leaves and poop amazing soil. I now have 6" of black soil with earthworms! This is in dry central Texas. Moisture helps microbial/fungal life. Leaves retain moisture. Another key ingredient is pressure/compaction of leaves. I have results on my YouTube channel: theRainHarvester

If you’re not on the bandwagon yet, you should try incorporating some mushroom blocks to speed up the decomposition! It’ll also help to take the moisture retention you’re getting up an additional notch.

We’ve got a local grow block recycling program through the Central Texas Mycological Society. For your use case, all you’d need to do is bury the blocks in leaf litter with one long edge barely poking up above the surface. A combo of blue and pink oyster would probably serve you well, depending on the season.

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#76

Post by GoToRO »

naet wrote: post #61
bgnn wrote: post #28

I started my gardening adventure with vegetables in pots. It was perfect, plants gave amazing yield, but required too detailed care and attention every day (or sometimes 2-3 times a day in a hot dry summer day). When I have moved to planting in soil I was shocked how worse the plants are doing. Same tomatoes giving 10-15 kg per plant yield in pots were under 3kg in soil. They got more disease issues, more pests (slug…

I had the opposite experience. I had rented a house that had an empty patch of dirt and asked the landlord if we could plant some vegetables there (which I didn't have a lot of experience in). My older neighbor saw me and said that we had great soil in our neighborhood but I didn't really think about it. The vegetables grew amazingly well, we had way too many tomatoes and tons of broccoli that kept growing back and m…

From what I know, first year after a lomg pause is always amazing. Farmers are paid to let the soil rest 1 year.

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#77

Post by culi »

econ wrote: post #74

Humans can figure out a lot given enough time. While all the hype for us is finance, management, machines, electronics and software etc it is not unthinkable a previous civilization went all in on soil. Terra Preta seems to be quite sophisticated. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

South America was pretty advanced. The oldest evidence we have of widespread metallurgy comes from the tip of South America around approximately 5000 BC. Which predates metallurgy in Eurasia by thousands of years. Copper smelting was particularly important

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_Am...

On the ecological side, some anthropologists argued that humans actually played a major role in transitioning Amazonia from mostly grasslands to the rainforest it is today around 10,000 years ago.

The distribution of many plant species is inexplicable without looking at human settlement patterns. So much so that other anthropologists have called the Amazon a "manufactured landscape".

https://sci-hub.ru/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007...

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#78

Post by datadrivenangel »

jimbokun wrote: post #73
elcritch wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a feeling. Getting grants requires following whatever hype trend is popular at the moment. Savvy academics know this and respond accordingly. Whether it’s AI (now) or DEI stuff (until recently), they add the required little sections and play the game.

I bet AI is really good at writing grant proposals with all the right buzz words.

It's so good that some grant applications are switching to short video submissions.

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#79

Post by lm28469 »

goeiedaggoeie wrote: post #66
bgnn wrote: post #28

I started my gardening adventure with vegetables in pots. It was perfect, plants gave amazing yield, but required too detailed care and attention every day (or sometimes 2-3 times a day in a hot dry summer day). When I have moved to planting in soil I was shocked how worse the plants are doing. Same tomatoes giving 10-15 kg per plant yield in pots were under 3kg in soil. They got more disease issues, more pests (slug…

We use a Lomi to convert our organic waste into compost I can add to my worm farm and then from the worm farm, mix with outdoor soil and grow in that. A automated a flood and drain system with our fish and cultivate nitrogen fixing bacteria with that, and water the plants with this water every couple of days. Using these two approaches I have not had to buy any nutrients in years and our soil is doing well. https://l…

Why get an electric powered gadget made of plastic and proprietary soft/hardware that will 100% for sure end in a dump in less than 20 years when all you need is a good ol compost bin?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bXZG-kzlhPY

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#80

Post by foobarian »

bgnn wrote: post #25
ralusek wrote: post #10

I'm a gardening and landscaping enjoyer, but I am constantly confused about the bordering magical thinking surrounding dirt, among other aspects of growing things. If you look at hydroponics/aeroponics, plants basically need water, light, and fertilizer (N (nitrogen) P (phosphorous) K (potassium), and a few trace minerals). It can be the most synthetic process you've ever seen, and the plants will grow amazingly well…

I think what is forgotten is the organisms other than plants. Hydroponics is amazing for plants but not sure if you can sustain a wineyard in that fashion for long without having some kind of organism starting to cause issues. A well balanced soil doesn't only support the plants but also provides a healthy microbiome. Now, with the use of pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and tilling it's not less synthetic process…

There are also organisms such as slugs, grubs, beetles, moths etc. which can mess with growth. I can basically not grow any sunflower at all without it getting destroyed by beetles, zucchinis by vine borer larvae, other things by slugs, etc. Makes it hard to garden without getting resentful and harboring feelings of revenge. Next thing you know you're dropping all sorts of evil chemicals on the plants. :-D
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