Soil Ecosystem — How it works
Soil Nerds are disadvantaged versus Tech Nerds, since in Silicon Valley there are many who speak “Tech Nerd Code”, and the “Soil Nerd Code” is still an evolving part of the nascent Regenerative Agriculture movement.
Regenerative Agriculture (RegenAg) is the next step in the transition from organic farming, to sustainable produce, to locally grown food.
Regenerative Ag is a bit like a prism, appearing different to various audiences. At its core, Regenerative Agriculture, has a goal of soil that gets healthier over time, by working with nature and natural process.
To consumers, this a worthy goal, supporting victory gardens, family farms, locally grown produce, and carbon sequestration in their “carbonshed” (the area where there is minimal carbon footprint for moving carbon around.)
To farmers, Regenerative Ag is a way of reducing costs and improving the value of the crop. Working with nature, especially soil microbes, to improve the health of the soil, which results in lower irrigation needs, better flavor, healthier plants and often larger crops — that is, lowering costs and improving the value of their production. This is a path to improved profitability and cash flow.
There are a multiple techniques that can be applied — but at the end of the day, Regenerative Agriculture always comes back to applying a 21st century understanding of natural processes and biology … where the 19th century “the chemistry of agriculture” is understood to be a more primitive understanding of natural processes.
There have been many attempts to graphically convey the Soil Food Web. We recently posted 8 very different versions of the concept. Here is the CliffsNotes version: Healthy soil needs a broad biodiversity, that crosses thousand of species of soil microbes, that span 7 types of life. The complete soil microbe biome works together to cycle the nutrients to feed plants, in the way nature intended.
Healthy soil has 10,000’s of species: bacteria, fungi, amoebae, flagellates, other protozoa, nematodes, earthworms and microscopic insects. The soil microbe biome has much in common with the gut microbe biome, and organic matter feeds each component. Sometimes referred to as the Soil Food Web, this complex living system is how nature intended plants to get their nutrients.
The plants extrude sugars and other chemicals, which encourage the growth of bacteria and fungi. These bind the minerals and nutrients, and when they are consumed by the higher trophic levels (the wee critters that eat the bacteria and fungi), this releases the nutrients in a plant available form.
In contrast, commodity compost is food for the microbes. This is the low value product your local nursery or large composter sells, In an effort to kill pathogens, the manufacturing process essentially cooks the decomposing material, and kills everything … effectively sterilizing their product.
If a mainstream composter is are lucky enough to have the beneficial microorganisms go dormant, which is how skilled craftsmen making Soil Food Web (SFW) Compost manage the balance between killing pathogens and keeping beneficial microbes alive, their final steps kill the beneficial microbes. Their equipment for sizing particles, shedding materials and turning guarantee the death of all the higher trophic levels of the soil microbe biome. It is these higher trophic levels, the amoebae, beneficial nematodes and flagellates, which consume the bacteria and fungi and, in doing so, release nutrients to be absorbed by the roots.
SymSoil contains all of the microscopic forms of life in healthy soil. We manage this with a patent (pending) process. Basically, we treat the beneficial microbes gently and provide them with the optimal environment to grow, reproduce and remain available to improve soil health for our customers.
Robust Compost is a complex community of soil microbes, in a solid transport medium. The soil microbe biome is a complete ecosystem and is the equivalent to the human gut biome for plants. It was originally described, in the academic literature by Dr. Elaine Ingham, as the Soil Food Web.
SymSoil and All Power Labs are collaborating on a social impact enterprise, Local Carbon Network
About SymSoil Soil Food Web — SymSoil’s Perspective Soil Biology and the Eastern Perspective on Health — A Guest Blog from Dr. Ting Ho
SymSoil has products and services for growers using regenerative agriculture methodologies which improve profitability. Its flagship product, SymSoil® RC (Robust Compost) is a complex community of soil microbes, which includes in excess of 1,000 species, covering broad biodiversity of bacteria, fungi, amoebae, and other protozoa, beneficial nematodes and microarthropods. SymSoil was named one of 2019’s AgTech Companies to Watch. Accredited Investors can learn more about SymSoil as an impact investment here.
Originally published at https://symsoil.com.
