posted 1 year ago
Hello all, I think this is my first post here. known about permies for a long time but mostly just read stuff here.
Lately I've been binge watching all the videos I can find on the soil food web and how the microbiology, fungi and plants interact with each other in a symbiotic relationship. I've read Teaming With Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels, I've watched plenty of videos on composting and soil health by Dr. Elaine Ingham and then just recently discovered the work by Dr. James White on how plant roots benefit and actually "Farm" bacteria to take in nutrients. What was particularly interesting about the discoveries by Dr. White and others is that when plants do NOT benefit from the soil food web for nutrition - i.e. they are raised on chemical fertilizer, then the plants DO NOT develop root hairs, which is where much of a plants roots interact with soil bacteria. Nutritional intake is then limited (apparently) to drawing in nutrients at the meristem or root tip only, and even then this "nutrition" from NPK is devoid of the other nutrients that would have otherwise been taken in via bacteria and fungi.
In light of the above information about plant root hairs, it occurred to me that a store bought vegetable plant from Burpee, or whoever, that started its life solely on chemical fertilizer would not be able to develop as readily when transplanted into an organic garden bed. A vegetable plant started on organic soil would obviously develop root hairs very early on, and then continue developing after transplanting to the garden bed. So that may be why I transplant tomatoes or peppers into the beds and see the plants just sit there and seem to stop growing for several weeks before finally starting to put on lush fresh growth - the plant is in the process of transitioning it's growth from being based on NPK to developing root hairs and growing naturally.
Any comments or thoughts ?
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