the quest for super soil

Soil is a living entity.
Soil contains a microcosm comprised of bacteria, fungi, amoeba, protozoa (flagellates and ciliates), arthropods which include springtails and nematodes, earthworms, various insects and near the surface animals such as moles, voles, etc..
If you look at any life form, its life is dependent upon soil, even if it is a creature living in water, some part of that life is dependent upon soil that has washed into the lake, stream or ocean, giving up the bacteria that flourished where that soil came from.
Land animals are even more dependent on soil for their lives since their foods start in the soil and the plants that grow there.
Soil is not only important, it is everything, for without soil, there can be no higher life forms than those that make soil what it is, the cradle of life.

Since life is totally dependent on soil or more precisely the organisms that make the mineral dust on the surface of the crust of planet earth usable by all other life forms.
Is it possible to make soil better than the best of it we can find?
What attributes would the perfect soil have?
We are still learning the answers to these questions.

All life can be considered electric, brain cells communicate through electric charges, without electron exchanges cells can’t do anything.
In the world of plants, roots need to be able to communicate with each other and then to the soil organisms in order to get the food items they need.
This is done by exudates, chemical messages, in order to actually make and expel these exudates the root cells have to communicate and that is done by electron exchanges.
One way we could make soil better would be to increase the electric conductivity capacity of the soil.
Carbon is the primary conductor in soil, adding carbon to soil will increase the conductivity, bio char is one simple way to do this.
Another way would be to increase the numbers of cations and anions by increasing mineralization.  

The “standard” is to till the soil, breaking up the matrix of life forms there, then adding synthetic, chemical fertilizers to add nutrients to the newly created dirt.
All the needed basic nutrients might be in that fertilizer but these compounds will not be in best usable form for the plants to take in.
These raw compounds won’t be processed because the life forms that do that job just got disrupted, broken down or buried far too deep to be able to survive.
Long chain molecules need to be broken into “bite size” chunks so the plant cells can use them to make the long chain molecules needed by the plant.
Since only the big three (N, P, K) fall into the “ready to use” form, it isn’t long before the plant looks nice and large and green and even puts off lots of fruits but,
where is the real nutrition that comes from the complex sugars that are used to make the proteins, carbohydrates and bind the vitamins in usable chain molecules?
They aren’t there because the microbiome was disrupted and then poisoned by the act of “farming”.

Plants that grow in an environment full of synthetic nutrients do not acquire the nutritional values that same species plants grown in the presence of natural, mineralized soils, mostly because it is the soil life forms that break down the nutrient packets into a form the plants can use best.
Synthetic nutrients (fertilizers) tend to either kill off soil life forms or are in such high concentrations that the organisms are overwhelmed and thus unable to do their job of breaking down nutrients before the plant roots suck them in.
This leads to the plant having a glut of improper nutrients which, like a human who ingests too much vitamin C, passes the excess as excrement.
The problem with this dependence on synthetic nutrients is that because they are not broken down prior to plant use, they are not in the correct form for the plant to use them well.
Which leads to plants deficient in nutrition.
These nutrient deficient plants are then used either as animal feeds or consumed directly by humans, the animal doesn’t receive the nutrients they need.
This method has brought with it the concept of empty calories.
You eat and feel full, but the nutrition simply isn’t there, resulting in cells not getting what they really need and end up substituting other items to complete the molecules needed for life.
The organism then uses these wrong component molecules which results in all manner of health issues.

There are other methods to make improvements, which would be far more beneficial and help the soil microbiome organisms thrive.
We can increase the numbers of the micro-biosphere organisms that creates soil.
This population increase can be accomplished through several methods; aerated compost teas, which contain living rhizosphere organisms, using finished compost as a mulch layer, which contains organisms of the rhizosphere, or through a combination of the two.
You can also increase the quantity of minerals and the variety of minerals by applications of finely ground rock dust, sea weed or even naturally evaporated sea water (sea salt).
The more varied we make our amendments to soil, the better the soil will become because life thrives in diversity.
This is in direct opposition to what has become the “standard” thinking of farmers and gardeners.

When any organism can’t get the nutrition it needs to be fully healthy, diseases can grow rapidly.
Diseases are usually caused by organisms (bacteria and viruses and most “pest” insects) which are unable to digest complete nutrients, they want incomplete items such as simple sugars and when these are in abundance, they have found their ideal breeding grounds.
This is why infestations occur in fields, the pest insects are attracted to the incomplete energies the deficient plants put off.
The plants are “sick” and the pest insects can literally see this, so they come in to eat the sick plant.
This is the point where the farmer resorts to poisons so there will be a crop to harvest.
This cycle is repeated, year after year.
The result of this method is resistant insects and diseases, and we intensify the toxicity or we find new toxins to apply to keep the pest under control.
This is an unsustainable method, both from a nutrient and pest control point of view.
You can only do this sort of thing for a short time before you have killed everything beneficial and thus increased the numbers of the pathogenic organisms.
We can find this is the case just by looking at farms all over the world.
Everywhere that has followed this non-sustainable methodology has vast tracts of waste lands that used to be productive farm land.
China is perhaps one of the best places to use as an example, simply because they have been farming longer than most other countries.

To be continued

Redhawk

I understand that you are going to keep going with this. I could see this being a good thread to send new members to. They often ask questions that could be answered if they read a comprehensive, Layman's guide to soil. If this thread develops that way, feel free to eliminate my comments so that it flows better.

Here we go, second installment

So, what is soil? Soil has two components, the mineral or geological component and the biological component. On the geological end, we are talking about ground up rocks or the dirt as I like to call it. Dirt is made up of; sand, silt and clay. These are different “grinds” of the base rocks in any area. Sand is small particles of ground up rock, large enough to be seen as individual grains with the naked eye. Silt is even smaller particles, not discernable as individual grains with the naked eye, but if you were to rub this material on your teeth, you would feel them. Clay is rocks that have been ground to a paste, these are particles so fine they feel smooth when given the “tooth test”. Let’s build some dirt. 35% sand, 20% silt and 15% clay, yes that doesn’t equal 100%, it comprises the dirt component though which is 70% of soil. The last 30% will be some rocks along with at least 15% and preferably closer to 23% being the biological component. The rocks allow for larger pockets of air which will fill with water during a rain event, thus adding moisture to the conglomerate we call soil. The water is necessary for life to thrive and turn the dirt into soil, without it all the microbiology of soil has to go dormant or die. To make up the biological component we need organic matter, tree litter, roots, grasses, etc. are the way Mother Nature does it, she has lots of time and she uses all those years very well. We don’t really have that amount of time, we only live for 1/100th of the amount of time Nature uses to build soil, so we need to be able to speed up her processes so we can build soil and be around to make use of it.

If you were to go searching, it is doubtful you would be able to locate any soil that was even close to nearly perfect, component wise. You will be able to locate fertile soils though, in many places, usually where humans have not used the soil for anything. We can take the soil we find and make it much better very quickly or we can grow things in it and let it get better slower, even though it will get better faster than Nature would do it. The limiting factor is how much effort and money we desire to spend to build this perfect or close to perfect soil. For humans to improve soil we make amendments to it or we apply artificial nutrients so it will produce bigger crops. The second method has been shown to actually speed up the depletion of soils and because of those findings, that method is not what we want to use.

First we want to have an idea of what is already there. This is where a soil tests becomes a valuable asset, it gives us information on our starting point and usually we are also given recommendations on how to put back what the soil test found missing. Unfortunately, the recommendations will be for artificial products, or natural products that are not the best choice but just a good choice, in order to bring the soil to “quality”. Thus we need our own arsenal of amendments so we aren’t just throwing chemicals at the soil organisms.

Gypsum is a natural rock that is ground up and used to make a material usually found in houses called drywall. Gypsum is a wonderful item to add to soils. It lasts a long time, helps adjust pH just like lime and you can add wood ash along with gypsum to bring acidic soils up in pH to get to that magical 6.5 to 6.8 that most plants love to live in. An added benefit is that since it is a calcium carbonate product, you are giving those soil organisms goodness without harshness.   Rock dust is one way to add trace minerals naturally, after all we are just using one of the dirt components, ground up rocks.  For different minerals we just use a different rock dust product. If we need more sand in our base then we can add it. If we have high clay content then we want to first give those clay particles something other than sand to cling to so we don’t end up with something that resembles cement. That means we fist would increase the humus (organic materials) content then add silt and finally we would add the sand. We have two ways to do these basic amendments, tillage and seepage. Tillage sounds counterproductive but in the real world it is part of disruption, just like fire or trees being blown down or herds of large animalone to two at a time s coming through. We are not talking about a yearly event but rather single disruptive event in most cases.  While we would indeed destroy much if not all of the life in that soil, it is probable that most of the life there would not be the organisms we really want to flourish there. So we gather our basic amendments, lay them down one to two at a time to keep track of quantity and quality of the spread, till them in, so that our base dirt has the quantities and make up that we need for our superior soil goal. It is a onetime event if we have done our homework prior to making the base amendments.

To get those all-important microbes, bacteria, fungi and the larger microbes such as springtails, amoeba and nematodes we need a source that already has them, so we can seed our new soil. Forest soil, especially from the drip line area of deciduous trees like oak, hickory and aspen is a great place to borrow some great microbes from. These trees, when growing robustly, will have mycorrhizal fungi growing around and even inside the roots, taking a shovel full or two from this area will provide many of those desirable microbes. Mycorrhizal fungi are one of those must have fungi so if you get hold of that type of soil, you are well ahead in the soil building game. This same tree soil will have bacteria along with the larger microorganisms we want too. Bacteria are easier, they are everywhere you look so just by making some compost we can grow most of the bacteria we need. Once we have the compost going well we can even extract some of the microbiota that we have grown and install that into our dirt simply by watering with the extract. We can also grow more of these microorganisms by brewing an aerated tea with a portion of our compost and we can feed those guys with easy to dissolve nutrients while we are brewing the tea. Teas are normally good for up to 48 hours of maximum bacterial growth so once we start the brewing we want to be ready to pour it on within that time period.  

And this will be continued of course

Redhawk

Nature loves to use variety in every aspect of life so it should be no surprise that this also applies to building soil. We already know that nature is not in a hurry and that we need to be in a hurry simply because of the short period we get to be inhabitants. It is also important to understand that what we do today will have effects on everyone who comes after we are long gone. We must build and create with the idea that what we do is for our great, great, great grandchildren and their great, great, great grandchildren. Humans forgot this back before the Industrial Revolution and we are now seeing those effects from that period. Soil is the first line of rejuvenation and regeneration of the planet. Now that we have some tools for improving our soil it is time to take a look at some of the methods to achieve this goal.

The simple act of growing plants in the soil will improve the soil, roots open air and water channels which become home for bacteria, fungi and the other important microorganisms of great soil. So just by growing our foods we are improving the soil, especially when we harvest the tops of the plants and leave the roots to rot in place.  This method works best when you also use animals to come through occasionally, they get some food, stomp up some soil and leave manure deposits. There is really only one drawback of this method and that is the time needed to reach high improvement levels. As long as you have 10 to 20 years, then this is the most economical method for soil improvement.

If we need to add a lot of humus (organic matter) to an area we can plant deep, large root crops, daikon radish, rape, and turnip are good choices, daikon will grow up to two or three feet long, a lot of bang for your buck when it comes to adding humus. Those huge roots also open up the soil to let lots of air and water in. Rape works the same way but the roots are a bit shorter and thinner and turnip works well for the top 8 inches of soil. Nitrogen fixing plants with long root systems like alfalfa (also called Lucerne) can send roots down 4 feet and they will draw minerals from those depths. This means that when you cut the top off and let it decompose in place, you are adding minerals from the depths to the surface. Clovers will store up Nitrogen and then release it into the soil as it dies and decomposes. All of the above mentioned plants are also fodder plants and work really well when you are moving animals through every so often for disturbance and manuring.

All green plants will add carbon to soil, but if you need a large carbon boost incorporate some kelp powder, kelp is one of the largest carbon sequestering plants on earth. It will also give your soil a nearly complete mineral boost and it is one of the best sources of Iodine you can find. Rock dusts are also good for increasing mineral content you find out which minerals you need to increase quantitatively and choose your rock dust amendment accordingly. Fish meal and Bone meal are always good amendments, especially when you are planting established plants either in a garden or orchard. You can simply sprinkle the meal on the surface around the plant and they will leach down to the root systems where they will feed the microbes and thus feed your plants, trees and bushes.

Since around 1980 there has been a push towards “No-Till” farming, this has been extrapolated to no-till gardening. However, there are times when you need to look at this method from the farm Point of View, which is what it was designed for initially. Standard farm practice is to disturb the soil every time you want to plant a crop and we aren’t talking about one pass with a plow. A farmer will break the soil up into “clods” with a ripper, then he will change to the harrow plow then to a disk plow break up the soil into smaller and smaller pieces of clod. Next he will put on another implement and break the soil down to small, pieces for planting, the seeder comes with row shapers, the actual seeder, and ends with a seed coverer for a one pass system of planting. Notice that this soil has been disturbed at least 5 times for one planting. If they made PTO Tillers as wide as they do plowing devices, the farmer could do all his damage to his soil in one pass and save tons of fuel. Tilling kills or forces microorganisms to go dormant and that is why No-Till came into being. Another effect of all that disturbance is that it lays open the top soil, allowing winds to blow it away. Disturbance has its role in crop growing but it doesn’t need to be so through that it prepares soil to get wind borne every planting time. Say I have 5 or even 5 thousand acres I want to plant and the soil is pretty good already, All I need to do is come through with a properly set up seed drill and plant my crop seeds at the right depth. I don’t need to work the soil to death, this is no-till planting.

Now let’s look at an example of when you might want to disturb the soil one time. Your soil test came back and says you are low or totally missing many of the important minerals for good plant growth. At the same time it tells you your soil pH is way off towards the acidic (or basic) end of the pH scale. The crop (s) you want or need to plant need all of this to be in place before you plant. Well, you have some choices to make; 1) you can top dress the soil (takes a while to actually get down to where your organisms live and so takes longer to show the effects of soil improvement), 2) you can top dress the soil and come through with a harrow to work the top dressing into the top few inches of soil so those amendments won’t blow away so readily, 3) you can decide to use put down the pH adjuster by sprayer then follow that with a mineral spray or dry application and wait a while for those to incorporate into the soil before you plant your seed.  Each method works quite well, time and expense are the factors to be considered.

In a small garden (under 5 acres) you also have some other methods to consider; 1) sheet mulching for weed control and mineral inoculation, 2) spread the amendments and cover with a loose mulch layer to prevent winds from blowing the amendments away. These are just some of the methods we can use to make improvements to our soil. What we need to be able to do is choose the best fit method for our situation. There is no one right method, just about any method you can come up with that won’t allow wind or water to remove those amendment items we are trying to put into our soil will work. The crucial things are time and costs, how much time are you willing to use up and how much money do you have to spend, those are limiting factors.

There are also problems with simply following the recommendations generated by your soil test. First, how did you create that sample you had tested? Second, how large an area did that sample represent?  Third, How homogeneous did you make that sample? These are huge in the world of soil science, to small a sample set and you only know about the soil represented in and around those few holes you dug up to send in. In a garden space of 100 feet by 50 feet there can be large differences in soil makeup. If you take five or even ten pieces to create your sample for the lab, how much of that space did you not get a sample from? When I am asked about how to get the best sample to me for testing, I recommend they use string and lay out a 1 foot square grid before they start lifting soil for their sample. This is so they can properly label each portion they will lift to create their sample. I also recommend that they use a horizon type sampling method. In this method you take a sample at the surface down to 6 inches, then you take a sample from 6 inches deep to 12 inches deep, then you take a sample from 12 inches deep to 18 inches deep. What this does is give you a series of tests to show what minerals are in each level that roots are going to be using, it forms a complete picture of the normal grow zone. This type of testing will also show you what changes to expect should you decide to till up or disrupt the current soil composition. You don’t need to do this on a regular basis either, if you are very serious about your soil you would do one at the beginning and then one a year later so your amendments have had time to come to equalization in the soil layers.

And this will be continued of course

Redhawk

This encapsulates so many good tradeoff decisions. All of this is just gold for people starting out. I have come to the same place but gracious I could have saved hours of research reading this years ago!!! Thank you my brother!

I look at things a bit abstract I guess, and such is the case here. To me, sustainable agriculture means a farm is viable, as how can a farm be truly rooted in permanent agriculture if it does not make money and has to be sold off...possibly to a new owner that does not care about ethical ways to farm? So to that end I do not see fiscal viability as any thing else but essential.

So to me, the quest for super soil is not so much about how I can manipulate the soil to make it better, but rather what can I do to grow crops that are more in line with what I have here. That does not mean ignoring depleted soil, it means knowing that where I live for instance, where the soil is low in PH, but contains gravelly loam, we can grow certain crops well like potatoes and broccoli.

Today that does not happen. Today there are two kinds of farmers here; the smaller farms that tend to grow veggies for farmers markets, and larger dairy farms. Both are struggling, and why shouldn't they be, they both are trying to farm against the soil. I say that because both require crops that require 6.8 PH levels and we have 5.2. So they are investing heavily with lime and other additives to sweeten the soil. This costs money and robs from the bottom line...both of them.

What should be happening is that they grow the crops that do well in highly acidic soil which is what used to happen. Potatoes farmers, working with low PH soil would grow crops every other year on a field, then in between they would grow cover crops like oats, barley and other small grains. This would enrich the soil, protect it, and give it nitrogen. Then the area chicken farmers would have to have a place for their high ammonia manure to be spread that the potato farmers desperately wanted. The local grain that was produced went into making grain for the chickens, along with the fish processing plants (we are on the coast) to fortify the chicken grains with protein. It was not 100% perfect granted, but for the most part we had vibrant communities.

Now its all gone. The chicken industry is closed up and has since 1988, and the last potato farm stopped growing potatoes in 1998. Heck we don't even fish here anymore...

My biggest gripe is that current soil testing is woefully inadequate; it is like saying your child is healthy based on a height and weight chart, when in reality we should be looking at their teeth, gums, fat to body weight content, etc and not just height and weight. In other words, we should have a way to test for things well beyond NPK, micro nutrients, PH levels and organic matter. That would be a better baseline.

Still...testing is only going to get you so far. Like my neurologist says, "I don't test to see if your seizure medicines are working, because the dose we have you at is working, and that is far more important". The reason I bring that up is, by observing we should be able to tell if what we are doing is working. Plants tell you if you are willing to look and taste. Yes taste, as the sweetness or lack thereof indicates PH levels. So does cutting apart nodules on nitrogen fixing plants to see how well they are converting nitrogen.

So to me, spending money, time and effort on making a super soil is rather silly as it is just a lot of time and effort wasted, when the reality is limiting a farms products to what is best matched to the farms soil would be a far better approach. Limit the inputs needed and the profit margin will automatically rise. In fact a lot, because savings goes 100% to the bottom line.

So why do I raise sheep instead of potatoes or broccoli? Because grass grows well at about 6.0 PH levels and do not require such high inputs of nitrogen. With  algeafiber (seaweed byproduct from a local plant here) at $1.90 per ton, I can get the PH levels where I need them to be, and get the nitrogen required through the right plants, right grazing plan, and sheep manure. I make money on this farm, not so much from what I make income wise, by what I do not spend. With the best pastures in the world due to topography, rainfall, jet stream and other factors, the question is not so much why I am raising sheep, its why others in New England are not.

hau Travis, I do agree with your thoughts but it seems you have missed the point of this thread. I have other threads that address exactly what you are pointing out.

It is true and sad that many people do seem to just throw money at a situation instead of looking at alternatives that would fit their circumstances.

With a 5.2 pH I'd be thinking Blueberries and Service berries for a crop.

In this thread I am attempting to show what perfect soil would contain and share methods that would allow near the goal results without resorting to chemical amendments.
pH is an interesting part of soil science because soil pH is affected by plants, they can actually make some adjustment to the pH of the soil they find themselves growing in through exudates.
We aren't talking about plants doing this to a broad area but rather they affect the pH in the immediate area around their roots, as the plants grow they will affect a broader area as their roots extend out and down.
Plants do this to help their companion bacteria and fungi.

Redhawk

installment 4

In the interest of sustainable, carbon sequestering speed the one crop that wins, hands down, is grass.
No other plant grows as fast, provides as much soil cover, gathers in as much CO2 nor is capable of providing as much cut mulch.
If we were to create a carbon farm, grass in the form of pasture or prairie land would be what our farm consisted of.
This does have some advantages if for an example you add ruminant animals.
You plant vast amounts of acers in a well varied blend of grasses, both tall and short rooted ones and intermingle other plants to increase the palatability of the pasture for the animals you choose.
Then you move them along every day so they don’t over graze any spot but they do their trampling, grazing and pooping and peeing just as if they were wild, free ranging bison.
You now have soil that is being improved every time those animals come around and you are giving the land the time it needs to incorporate all the nutrients left behind by those animals as well as time for it to grow tall for that next feeding pass.
The land is never bare, it is never tilled and it sucks up water like a sponge.
The best part is that this soil will improve every year without a lot of effort on the farmer’s part.
If this soil needs extra minerals, they are spread in solid form and allowed to work their way down in the soil on their own.
This is a very sustainable model and it works very well.
The soil, regardless of how good it was to start with, improves in humus content, water holding ability, microorganism density, friability and this goes on continually as long as those animals keep moving along.
Gabe Brown and Joel Salatin are two of the best known proponents of this model.
It is difficult to argue with success that is proven year after year.

However there are many people who are looking at owning, or already own, a smaller plot of land and only want to provide food for their own use.
This means they are more gardener than rancher archetypes.
They have an entirely different set of issues or at least that is what they perceive.
The issues are actually mostly the same; sustainability, maximum benefit with least input of money and time are the goals.
So how do they best emulate the Gabe Brown or Joel Salatin models when vegetables are what they grow?
These folks can utilize other, smaller animals for similar effects and even though those animals affect the land differently than the large ruminants.
They will get many similar benefits such as manure, even though this group will need to use composting of those manures so the N levels come down to useable levels to prevent Nitrogen burn of their crops.
Since they are farming vegetables in garden beds, this is less a problem than it might seem.
If we feel the need to categorize this model it would be best described as the Homesteading model or the self-sufficient farm model.
Those working this model are in the best position to reach the perfect soil or get very close to it over time.
These folks might have chickens, a few goats, perhaps some hogs and even rabbits and sheep.
Any or all of these animals can be used to emulate the sustainable large farm model by moving their animals around their land.
Goats (small ruminant) can be used to clear underbrush and prune up low branches of trees.
Chickens can be used as bug control and compost turners as well as producing eggs and meat once they have lived past their productive life.
Rabbits provide meat and ready to use fertilizer as do goats.
Sheep (small ruminant) are great lawnmowers and they, along with goats can do some of the trampling that heavy ruminants can do, they are just lighter in weight and so their feet won’t do as much localized disruption as an 800 lb. cow.
Horses and donkeys are good trampling animals and they will also do disruption by creating dust bath areas similar to chickens.
The manure from these single stomached animals is quicker to compost but you do have to compost it (or let it age naturally) because it is nitrogen rich coming from a non-cud chewing animal.
Goat manure is wonderful stuff, easier to handle than cow dung but very much like it in bacterial content, all ruminants provide ready to use manures or it can be composted for better bacterial content.
If you are not giving them store bought feed, there is little concern of bad bacteria being in their manure.
Sheep manure is very hot nitrogen wise it is comparable to chicken manure.  

Next we will explore some options for developing such a site specific model that will provide food and build the soil at the same time.

Redhawk

I love this.

This is right up natural/korean farming directions.

I wish you all the best and may your words find those who need it!  I believe this is the direction to begin to heal the earth on many many levels.

Jah Bless
Harry Soloman

installment 5

We just purchased a nice 25 acre plot of farm land for a song and we want to start growing some food for our own use.
There is no plan to make this small farm into a for profit farm. (We will do one of those next)
We have taken a good number of soil samples and submitted them to the Local Extension service for a complete soil test with mineral concentrations.

Most soil tests measure total carbon, which then is multiplied by 1.72 to calculate soil organic matter.
This assumes that most of the carbon in the soil is humus of one form or another.
While this may or may not be true, determining the carbon to nitrogen, nitrogen to sulfur, and nitrogen to phosphorus ratios is a good guide for evaluating organic matter,
and this requires testing total nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus as well as carbon.
Carbon in almost any form is a benefit to the soil, it helps enormously if it is accompanied by the right ratios of nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus.
The usual target for carbon to nitrogen is 10:1, for nitrogen to sulfur is 5.5:1 and for nitrogen to phosphorus is 4:1. This works out to an ideal carbon to sulfur ratio of 55:1, and a carbon to phosphorus ratio of 40:1.
Soil biology is very adjustable and these targets are not exact, but achieving them in soil tests is a good indication of humus reserves that will supply the required amounts of amino acids, sulfates and phosphates.
As long as nitrogen fixation supplies a steady stream of amino acids from the microbial symbiosis around the plant roots there is no other element closer to hand in greater abundance than nitrogen.

A more urgent deficiency to remedy is sulfur. Sulfur works at surfaces and boundaries making things accessible.
As such it is the catalyst for most of plant and soil chemistry.
It is sulfur that peels the sticky, miserly magnesium loose from its bonding sites in the soil.
Without sufficient sulfur the plant may not take up enough magnesium even if it is abundant in the soil.
This deprives the plant of sufficient chlorophyll to make efficient use of sunshine, and then there is a shortage of sugary root exudates to feed nitrogen fixation  which requires 10 units of sugar to produce one amino acid.
Considering how common magnesium deficiency is in plants growing on magnesium-rich soils, we shouldn’t ignore sulfur deficiencies in the soil reserves.
Many soils are abundant with magnesium, but without the 55:1 carbon to sulfur ratio needed for optimum growth, plants can easily be magnesium deficient, poor in photosynthesis and when they don’t make enough sugar they won’t have good nitrogen fixation.

One can amend sulfur into soil in various ways.
1. Chars or raw humus, both of which are deficient in nitrogen and sulfur,
2. Small amounts of ammonium sulfate can be helpful, keep in mind this is a soluble chemical and only so much can be absorbed by the soil’s carbon complexes and the microbial life they support.
3. Potassium sulfate might also be of use, but total testing often indicates an abundance of total potassium and adding more, in soluble form, interferes with magnesium uptake, which is counterproductive.
4. Gypsum (calcium sulfate) is most commonly used for corrections, though only about 50 ppm of sulfur (0.4 to 0.6 tons per acre) can be absorbed by the soil in one application.
So this item will need to be applied several times over a season or two to be of best use.
Sulfate tends to leach if there’s too much. A trait that might be good if all sulfate could carry with it was magnesium (most soils are high in magnesium).
But, what if the sulfate carries copper, zinc, manganese or even potassium along with it?
Loosing those minerals to leaching is not good.

To keep soluble sulfur topped up at 50 ppm (Morgan test) by using gypsum mixed with compost or raw humus, gypsum will probably work beautifully and not acidify the soil.
It can take a few years to build sulfur levels in the soil, but patience is a virtue.
However, when the soil pH is already 7.0 or above, elemental sulfur becomes the input of choice.
Elemental sulfur pulls oxygen out of the atmosphere as it oxidizes to sulfate and this lowers pH and in alkaline soils this is desirable.

Now that we have covered what we might have to do once we get those soil test results, we don't want to sit idle in the interim.
We have marked off some areas near the house for animal use and we have laid out two areas for pasture and another for growing vegetable and grain crops.
While we wait for our test results we go ahead with coming up with a workable water management design that will help us keep the rain water where we want it and in the event of a deluge our earth works will keep the soil where it is, at least as much as possible.
The grade of this land is not bad, a 3 degree difference from high point to low point with two shallow ridges that run parallel to each other with a 600 foot separation.  
We get our water level and A-frame and go to work on laying out the stakes for our swale/berm earth works using the 1 degree off level method to move water along the swale to each of the shallow ridges.
We also mark out where we want the ponds of this system to be located.
We separate these structures so our equipment can be used without disturbing the new constructions thus helping us maintain them without having to break through, we decide to make the ponds the place to go through with the equipment to the next swale row.
From the lay of the land we determine we need 1.5 feet of depth to the swale along with a 4 foot width.  
During the construction of the earth works we notice that the soil is in great need of humus content improvement, that is has a fair amount of clay subsoil as well as a sandy type of topsoil, we know this from the orange color and stickiness of the subsoil along with the pale brown of the topsoil layer.
As we finish the construction we seed the newly bared soil to help prevent erosion of our new disturbance.
These seeds, a mix of many different types of plants will be the first chop and drop cover crop.
We also come through and plant fruit and nut seedling trees along the back side of the berms.

So now we are still waiting for our soil test results but we have a good start.
We have laid out our field into strips wide enough for our equipment and we have some long term crop trees getting their start.
The land is being converted to have a multitude of things for our food needs while we build our soil.

And this will be continued of course

Redhawk

Great idea to put a fairly complete overview up rather than a disjointed bunch of opinions--it is really helpful when you have a topic where there are a lot of basics people are going to have to learn.

One thing I wanted to clarify: I have read numerous places that gypsum, being the sulfate form of calcium doesn't raise the ph. It is generally recommended for those situations where your soil is already alkaline enough due to other alkaline minerals, but there isn't enough calcium. In my case, there is already a lot of potassium and magnesium in the native soil and the ph is about 7, so my testing service recommended gypsum rather than calcium carbonate or cal-mag or any of the other, ph-raising options. Is there disagreement on this? Should we look further for more info?? Since I am currently adding gypsum per their recommendation, this is of real import to me, so I'd like to be sure.

Lets look at the chemical make up to derive an answer Jamie.
Gypsum is indeed calcium sulfate, that means that sulfur is the atom that boded with the calcium, what happens when sulfur becomes free?
It can bond with hydrogen and that makes sulfuric acid.

While it is very true that using gypsum shows less pH activity than calcium carbonate (makes carbolic acid), it will perform a mild and long term pH adjustment.
Gypsum is a more stable atomic structured molecule so it takes longer to break down.
So it affects pH less because it takes longer to break those bonds, this is a good thing for the soil micro organisms, they don't experience a "rush" so they are much happier instead of acting like they are A.D.D..

If your soil is near neutral (pH=7) then you have little ionic ability in the soil, we want some ionic ability because that is how bacteria and fungi do their work of breaking down soil nutrients.
This is why most soil tests will list cation and anion content in a "complete" series of tests and it is why most plants do best in a pH range of 6.8 to 6.5, the acidity (slight) provides better ionic exchanges.

I always prefer to use long term amendments when possible and one of my favorites is Gypsum.
It is almost goof proof and even should you go over board, it isn't going to turn into a disaster.

Redhawk

Since I have a break from my research I can get back to this thread.

I have had a lot of people making interesting statements and asking weird questions (not here, these are from researchers, i.e. people who should know the microbiology).
My fellows seem to not have grasped the way the world actually works when it comes to growing crops.
I have come to the conclusion that their problem is the entrenched mind set of production over all else, this mind set is present in just about every farmer I have ever talked to, so, I will explain the reasons I grow soil first.

Soil is a complete ecosystem, (my current research is to better understand the complex interactions of this ecosystem) as a complete ecosystem there are interdependencies and interactions at every level, so let us look at how plants came to be and thus how they work.

Most farmers seem to think that plants came first, the truth is that plants are the end result of all that came before them.
The order of earth evolution is known, rocks slammed together and fused which created heat which fused more rocks together until they formed planet earth.
Earth has a molten rock core, the skin (surface) is just a thin crust of cooled rock, erosion turns this rock crust into dirt by grinding the rock into smaller and smaller pieces.
dirt is therefore just finely ground up rocks, lifeless bits of minerals, plants need soil to grow healthy, soil is comprised of dirt, water, bacteria, fungi, amoeba, springtails, nematodes and a plethora of other "micro and macro organisms".
These critters were here, eating minerals and each other for millennia before the first plants showed up. If there had not been soil already present there would have not been the development of plants.
Even the simplest of plants, algae, had to have microorganisms present before they could evolve. We know this because of the structure of algae and the components that make up one cell of algae.

So what does this mean to the farmer? Why worry about the chicken or egg question at all? Well, many farmers say "I don't care about the soil, I need to grow better plants to get higher yields of my crops to sell".
Fine, you want better plants with disease and pest resistance that will give you bigger yields so you can make more money and thus keep your farm and be able to buy things you need or want.
You can not do this without first having the best soil possible, it just isn't going to happen because the soil is what feeds those plants everything they need and want.

The soil ecosystem is what provides all the nutrients plants need. It is bacteria eating the minerals it needs to grow being eaten by the amoeba that feeds on the bacteria being eaten by the nematodes that feed on that amoeba being eaten by the fungi that feeds on the nematode being eaten and on and on.
At each feeding poop (excesses of what the food organism had eaten) is excreted which becomes available, in the needed form, to the plant roots.
The plant root takes in what it needs and the leftovers are again eaten by the organism that feeds on that item.
There is no leaching of any nutrient in this type of bioactive soil, moisture is regulated far better so there is some always present.
The best thing is that this ecosystem is not limited to just the surface, over time the ecosystem expands downward until it reaches bed rock, at which point the bacteria go to work on that bedrock which ends up creating even more soil.
All of the organisms do not migrate downwards, so we end up with Horizons of different soil types but roots grow deeper, taking advantage of the nutrient layers they can reach.

Plant roots emit root exudates, which are sugars, to grow specific micro organisms that process the particular nutrients the plant needs, there are different exudates for each specific organism/nutrient.
Plants also rely on organisms that climb up on the plants surface, these organisms deposit or inoculate the exterior of the plant with these deposits which help the plants resistance to diseases and infestation by pests.
All this interaction shows that if you want to grow the best plants you must grow the best soil first, because without the best soil it is impossible to grow the best plants which then grow the best, nutrient rich food for us.

Farmers that have been shown just how great good soil is at reducing "weeds" reducing need for irrigation, reducing pests, and growing healthy plants which grow great crops, tend to change overnight from chemical farmers to soil growing farmers.
This has happened in Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Tasmania and every year we are seeing more farmers become biological farmers, leaving the chemical world behind and reaping far more benefits with less inputs than ever before.
How did these farmers make the transition so quickly? They trialed a field and saw the differences almost immediately, the control field grew weeds, even after two applications of herbicide while the trial field had no weeds from the beginning,
the control field sprouted and the plants were about 1/2 inch tall after a week on the trial field the plants sprouted and grew to 1-2 inches in the first week after germination, pests and disease immediately attacked the control field plants, the trial field had none of these problems.
When a newly sprouted plant was lifted to see the roots, the control field plant roots were about 1 inch long, in the trial field the plant roots were about 6 inches long, this was done after one week past germination.
These farmers eyes told them which method was working in their best interest.

Compost and compost extracts along with compost teas are the fast track to increasing production of crops and that means increased profits for commercial farmers which means they can and will stay in business.
My next post here I'll start with recipes to make great compost that is microorganism rich then we will delve into how to incorporate these materials with your soil to vastly improve it and at the same time make it draught resistant.

Redhawk

Wow this is one heck of an informative thread. I think I will have to read this several more times to saok in all the knowledge. Thanks Redhawk

So how do you make a compost that grows the specific bacteria or fungi and all the other necessary "critters" needed to build great soil?
This is a question that we find more, better answers to every year, researchers are still finding out we know almost nothing about which bacteria, fungi and the other critters are best for particular plants, every study is literally a discovery of new knowledge.

Vegetables, we now know, are more bacterial oriented plants except for some of the root vegetables which seem to call both bacteria and fungi to their root systems.
We know that plants use photosynthesis to build sugar compounds and that these sugars can be simple or complex molecules.
We also know that plant exudates are comprised of these simple sugars and the complex sugars and that each one calls into action different organisms (either bacterial organisms or fungal organisms and or flagellates, springtails and nematodes via the activity of the bacteria and or fungi).
If the plant is in need of the items a certain bacteria strain eats, the specific exudate will be injected into the soil by the roots that will be taking up that nutrient. The bacteria get busy but the nutrient is held inside the bacteria, this extra activity by the bacteria stimulates the predator of that bacteria into action.
Lets say it is a beneficial nematode that eats that bacteria, the nematode comes in and devours the glut of bacteria, it eats so much it can't use all the nutrient so it poops out the extra amount and that makes the nutrient available for the plants roots, which suck up all the nutrient that the plant needs at that time,
if there is any extra amount, it remains in the soil and the bacteria again gobble it up, storing it till the next time. The same occurs with fungi, unless bad, root predatory nematodes come in for a feast of roots. When that happens the roots send out the exudate that tells the fungi hyphae to trap and destroy the nematodes.
The fungi wrap around the bad nematodes and gobble them up, this releases nutrients since there are more nutrients than the fungi can use and once again the roots suck up those nutrients needed, leaving the leftovers behind and the bacteria and fungi gobble those up putting them in storage.
This is why there is little leaching away of nutrients in living soil, it is also why the addition of chemical fertilizers don't stay in the place they were put for use by the plants, an event we term as leaching, where those false nutrients aren't taken in by the soil biology and then rains wash those false nutrients away and into streams and lakes.

All life is about eating the right foods, no matter the size or complexity of the organism, it must eat good, nutrition containing food in order to thrive. Poor nutrition results in sickness and possibly death.
Sick plants attract predator pests (disease and insects) to come and destroy them, healthy plants do not send out the same messages to these predators as sick plants do, so the bugs tend to seek out the weak, just like animal predators seek out the weak and sick, destroy them so the herd can be healthier.
Young plants are in danger just like the young animal, they don't yet have their defenses built up enough yet so they can be an easy meal. The day old calf can't run as fast as the week old calf or the month old calf, nor do they recognize when they need to run as quickly, thus they fall to the predator.

So to build the best compost we need to try and cater to the specific needs of the primary organism(s) that we want to attract and grow in the greatest quantities.
bacteria feed on simple and complex sugars along with nitrogen and the primary mineral nutrients such as iron, copper, manganese, phosphorus and potash(potassium), the bacteria do not want these in simple forms though they need to be able to use the energy gotten from breaking down the sugars to release the other nutrients. This is why artificial (fertilizers) don't work as well, the bacteria get fat from having everything in fast food form and that makes them sluggish (couch potato syndrome) and unable to answer the call the root exudates send out.

Green materials are not only rich in Nitrogen and the other base mineral nutrients they also contain good amounts of sugars, both simple and complex.
This is why a compost pile heats up, the bacteria create a lot of heat as they eat these nutrients, and as with all life, excess is either left behind for other organisms or it is pooped out to get rid of what can't be utilized at the time.
Bacteria also require a lot of oxygen to be able to perform their tasks.
Which is why we want to build a compost heap loosely, with plenty of air spaces. Bacteria also require water to do their job, which is why we want a nice, evenly moist compost heap.
When we provide these "ideal" conditions, bacteria thrive, multiply several times an hour and poof, we have a nicely heating, pathogen and weed seed killing compost heap, turning everything into what we gardeners love to call "black gold".

Brown material are rich in carbon, cellulose and the other items that fungi love to eat, give them moisture and cool temperatures along with plenty of their preferred foods and they will thrive and multiply, forming long strands of hyphae that writhe through their materials.

The one enemy of both of our little workers is ciliates, a millipede looking little organism that can destroy any organism it runs into but these enemies of the composter have to have an anaerobic environment to thrive, oxygen is their enemy.
If we don't make sure our compost heap has plenty of oxygen, these enemies can burst forth in vast numbers, doing a blitz maneuver on those bacteria and fungi we worked so hard to make a great home for.
The only time we can get away with allowing an anaerobic environment to occur is if we are fermenting some compostable materials, in which case, the byproducts of the fermentation process prevent a giant bloom of ciliates.
If you find your heap going this wrong direction you can reverse the effects by adding lots of oxygen quickly.

To be continued.

Redhawk

Let us take a look into the makings of a compost heap that we want to grow bacteria, fungi, flagellates, and nematodes to add to our garden soil.
If we get the correct ratio of all these, we can do some serious good to the soil we have, increasing the ability of that soil to grow just about any plants we desire.

To start off we need some piles of materials that are high in carbon and cellulose, things like wood chips, sawdust, straw (wheat, rice, barley, oat or rye) are all good suppliers of the items we want from our brown materials.
These materials will provide the nutrition fungal organisms need to grow strong as well as quickly once the heap has started to cool down.
For our greens we have a fairly wide variety usually available; grass clippings in the spring and summer are a great green material (N, P, PK) as are green leaves from any plants or trees, spent coffee grounds are particularly great to have on hand as are old tea bags.
We can also count fresh manures (not completely dried out) as part of our Green component.
small sticks are just fine for adding as a brown material and they will also function to hold open some air spaces, remember oxygen is our main concern for growing good bacteria and all the other wanted critters.

Start with a layer of browns on the bottom, dampen this layer now. Next is a layer of green materials, dampened now, and we build up in alternating layers, making sure to dampen each layer as we stack up our heap.
Once we have nothing but a pile of browns left, we want to cover the whole heap with that last application of brown materials, this will help hold in the moisture we have been adding and it will be porous enough for air to continually move in and out of the heap.
If you want to put a true cover on, it needs to be some organic material, NOT PLASTIC, plastics kill a compost heap, turning it anaerobic almost instantly and that will end up a stinky mess, the ammonia will come off as a gas and ammonia is nitrogen lost to the air.
I keep two natural fiber carpet runners but I rarely use them, if I do use them they will do a fair job of helping keep animals from digging around in my newly built heap but they will allow air in as well as water from rains, which is why you might need a cover.

When you have completed building the heap, you want to let it sit for around 2 days then take the internal temperature to see if you built it right. Within two days the internal temperature should be significantly higher than the ambient air around the heap.
The best way to do this is with a compost thermometer which is a long probe dial or digital unit that looks very much like a standard meat thermometer, if you don't have one, you want to get one, they are not expensive as thermometers go, around 36 dollars US will purchase a nice one.

After your heap has been heating up for around a week, it is time to turn it, this means we want to get the outside materials to the inside so you need space to move the heap into a new pile, this is where you don't need to worry about those layers anymore.
While a shovel can work, I have found that a multi-tine stall fork works best for this task, it has enough tines to move the heap materials quickly and easily, take the exterior off and put it in the center, then the center goes on top of this new core.
You will also add moisture as you go about turning the heap, I have found that a mister does the best job of getting even moisture into a heap, some are even on a bendable hose so you can twist it to be spraying where you need that moisture to land, just turn it on and start turning the heap.

Some compost experts will say you don't need to turn a heap, this is true but it takes much longer to reach the end goal of finished, ready to use compost this way.

Once we have nice, great smelling, finished compost we have to decide how we want to use it.
We can spread it on a garden as a mulch, we can spread it and turn it in (this is what you do to get more soil organisms down where they want to be quickly for rapid improvement) or we can make teas or extracts from the compost.
Teas are meant to be sprayed as a folar feeding.  This is great if you are treating diseases or infestations, but not the best overall use of your compost.
Extracts are meant to be poured on the soil.  This will condition soil quickly, get the organisms where we want them and it will help them populate the roots of the plants faster.

To be continued.

Redhawk

So now we need a way to make sure we are building our compost heaps in correct ratios, which is fairly easy even without a large scale, the eye can discern height, depth, breadth of piled up materials, and this will usually suffice for getting close enough.
But, if we want to make compost for the specific task of growing microorganisms, we will need some equipment and we need to know how to use that equipment.
It isn't all that necessary unless you want to charge for your knowledge or you need to reach a specific goal in a specific time and that time is within one or two years.
The equipment isn't super expensive (though it is possible to buy super expensive, it just isn't necessary) and there isn't a lot of it needed.
The first and most important piece is the microscope, without one you can not see what organisms you are growing and you can't do organism counts to know how many of the organism(s) you have in a liter of extract or tea made from the compost.
The need to know these numbers and which species you have is only necessary if you have specific needs for the land you are trying to improve.
It is quite acceptable to just do the work of adding compost and watering in with compost extracts, you will increase biology numbers.
The draw back is that you don't know which organisms you are increasing the numbers of.
Why is that important to know? Because if you are wanting to improve the nutrient value of a pasture that has grass as the main plant material, you need to be heavy on the bacteria and medium on the fungi.
If you don't have a microscope, you are using the guesstimate system, not a bad thing but with a microscope you can do much better and so have a faster return on your efforts. Plus it is cool to see these micro critters you grew.

The other piece of equipment you might want is a compost tea/ extract brewer. These can be homemade very easily but there are models on the market that use every possible trick to get you the best end product.
Many of these use a vortex swirling apparatus inside a stainless steel tank but if you ever see a photo of the inside of one of these, you can (with some basic metal working skills) duplicate the set up well enough.
Do you need this brewer? No, not unless you are doing soil improvement as a way to make money from others or you want to be able to improve hundreds of acres in a short time span (again 2 years or less)

Other than these two pieces of equipment do you need much else? No, just a turning fork for the heap, maybe a long piece of 3/4 inch diameter conduit for air injection to the heap without having to turn it and an air compressor of some sort to provide the air for that injection pipe.
For tea and extract you need a drum to brew in (55 gal. food grade plastic barrel does fine) an air pump with diffuser stone (the larger the better) some hose to connect the stone to the air pump. (even Walmart carries these in the fish tank area of the pet department)
for keeping the compost easy to remove from your brewing barrel something loosely woven like "cheese cloth" works but it doesn't last many uses, since it is pretty cheep and can be recycled into the compost heap that really isn't a concern though.
The last thing you might find handy is some butcher's twine to tie the cheese cloth into a sachet and leaving a long enough end to be able to pull it out of the soup when that time comes is handy too.

Teas are usually brewed for two or three days, extracts use more compost bundles and they brew for as many as 7-8 days. Air is pumped in all the time the brew is going.
Once either of these brews are completed, you want to use them fast so you get maximum benefit for your efforts.

To be continued

Redhawk

Excellent information, as always.

good reads folks! if you're like me and have very little compost and have no decent soil around and want a rich soil that has nearly everything a plant needs for a season, check out subcools super soil recipe! a friend of mine that grows organic medical weed turned me on to this. i will cost you nearly $100 for the ingredients but you can make a lot of batches from what you buy initially and its so concentrated , a little goes a long way. he fills the bottom third of a large pot with the super soil then fills the rest with a quality organic soil. will grow a 10ft. plant, in a 15 gal. pot, with only watering and a occasional compost tea to boost microbial levels. i mix mine in a kiddy pool and let it cook in a covered barrel for at least a month. one small batch a season is usually all i need. i also add red worms to it to help further beak down the ingredients. i feed them chopped comfrey also. find the small batch recipe for the one that can be mixed in a kiddie pool. amazon is the cheapest place to buy the ingredients.  good luck!

Ok, we have a huge pile of dead weeds, leaves, ground up branches, a medium sized pile of manure (perhaps mixed with straw or wood chips from a stable or a heap of cow chips and other animal manures) and darn it there isn't any fresh green material.
How the heck are we going to make a new compost pile with what we have on hand?
Since we are firmly into fall, it would seem we might have to wait till spring comes around to get to build our compost heap, Not true! We have our carbon materials (fungal food) we have manure too, which has some nitrogen compounds in it.
We know we can use our personal supply of spent coffee grounds or tea bags for that important nitrogen component and we might even have some food prep items like peelings from potatoes, carrots etc.
These items give us all we need to get that new heap started.
We also know that if we find we don't have enough nitrogen bearing materials, all we have to do is drink lots of water so we produce our own liquid nitrogen material, easily applied to the new heap as we build it.

I have known people who have made the mistake of thinking they have to wait for new green materials to be available in order for them to be able to build a compost heap, sadly, if they wait that long, most of what they want will be gone, either into the air or into the soil beneath their waiting pile of materials.
The time to build a heap is when you have materials on hand, don't worry so much about the weather, including rain, as long as it isn't a downpour you can build your heap, in a gentle rain you won't have to worry about adding any water, it will be incorporated as you lay on those layers and any extra will leak away.
If there happens to be any leaching of nutrients, no worries, they will be in the soil around the heap and the bacteria will spread to those nutrients even as they are busy eating and multiplying in your heap.

What about minerals you ask, again not to worry, leaves and woody materials are made up of minerals. What about those important sugars the bacteria feed on you ask, well most manures will have some, if you think you need extra simply add some form of sugar, not granulated please, we are looking for sugars like dextrose (simple sugar) and some long chain sugars like fructose or lactose. So if you eat fruits, any that are past being good to eat become a sugar amendment for your compost heap, apples, peaches, and any other fruits will do the trick (kitchen scraps are perfect for this addition).

No need to go spend your hard earned money to create great compost and soil.
Only should you be able to perform a chemical test battery, would you think to bother with purchasing mineral containing items to add to your heap, even then, you should have enough chemistry knowledge to know you don't need to do this, it is more a want to do this than it is a need to do this sort of thing.

What we really need to know is that we want a wide variety of bacteria working on breaking down the minerals contained in our heap materials.
We also need a fair amount of different fungi which will feed on those bacteria and the cellulose and lignin parts of our heap, these guys also use leftovers of the bacteria for food.
Then we will want all the other critters that make up the micro biome of soil.
We will find them once the heap gets started, they will show up in small numbers at first but they too will multiply over time and fill their niche in the food web of the compost heap. Protozoa, flagellates and all the others will be drawn to the heap as it goes through the stages of becoming our black gold.
once these guys are rumbling along like a locomotive the heap will start to cool down and worms and nematodes will move in to do their part of the decomposition process.
If we built our heap on top of the soil, with nothing between that soil and heap, the soil under the heap will get better and better as some of the nutrients find their way down and into the soil below the heap.

This is the great part of building soil, it is one of the great miracles of life on planet earth and without it, there would not be much life on earth.

Redhawk

I'm always struggling to get enough compost in my climate. it takes literally 2 years to break down a average  3ft. pile even when i have the correct ratios of brown to green. i actually add double the N and sugars trying to speed up the process but even then our cold weather slows the metabolic process of the microbes and fungi in there. our summers average low 70's during the day to upper 40's at night. and thats mid june to beginning of sept. buying bagged compost is expensive and is of poor quality. i can make my super soil from ingredients i buy and stretch it a long way to  fertilize my soil and its more nutrient diverse than any compost i can make or buy.one of the most important ingredients, worm castings , i get for free from my worm bins. a couple handfuls of sub cools super soil is all i need around my trees and bushes for the whole summer. its a complete mix for growth and fruiting. it does cost about $80 to get everything to make it but one batch lasts 2 seasons and the initial buy of ingredients makes 8 batches so it not very expensive in the long run. a lot cheaper than buying the compost from the store which is terrible. matter of fact when i do get usable compost from my bins, i add a couple handfuls of this super soil to further boost it and the results are fantastic! sub cools super soil has  helped my plants produce 3x's what i was getting w/ the little compost i could make naturally myself. I'm jealous of you guys that can get usable compost in 6 mo.!

Steve, in your situation a drum composter will help a lot with getting compost to finish. When I was in New York I used a steel 55 gal. drum with removable lid and ring, just laid it on the ground to roll it to mix the contents.
These apparatuses help hold enough heat internally to get the job of decomposition done in a fairly short time, even up north.

Redhawk

that sounds like a good idea. I've even tried pvc pipes with holes in them stuck in the compost to increase airflow. helps some but still takes way too long.. i even have a 24hp mahindra tractor that i use to turn my piles every few weeks. where would you buy a 55 gal drum? I'm in the sticks here. eBay maybe? do you put small holes in it?

I get plastic, food grade, 55 gal. barrels from a guy that works at a plant where they get acetic acid in them, once you rinse these out and do some modifications they work better than the steel ones I use.

The steel ones can have anything in them since you are going to burn them out before you set them up for composting.  I drill 1/4 inch holes spaced 1 foot apart in all directions, this allows excess moisture to drain out.
I also use a flat black paint for the exterior once I have burned the barrel to get any contaminates gone, I also pressure wash the inside after the burn just for safety. You can paint the interior if you so desire, just be sure it is a "food safe" type paint so you don't add contaminates.

I try to make sure the materials for composting are fully wetted before I put them in. Once full, I put the lid on and shut the ring so the lid doesn't fall off as I roll it. I let a barrel sit for two days then start turning it once per day, the more sun you can get on the barrel, the better.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:I get plastic, food grade, 55 gal. barrels from a guy that works at a plant where they get acetic acid in them, once you rinse these out and do some modifications they work better than the steel ones I use.

The steel ones can have anything in them since you are going to burn them out before you set them up for composting.  I drill 1/4 inch holes spaced 1 foot apart in all directions, this allows excess moisture to drain out.
I also use a flat black paint for the exterior once I have burned the barrel to get any contaminates gone, I also pressure wash the inside after the burn just for safety. You can paint the interior if you so desire, just be sure it is a "food safe" type paint so you don't add contaminates.

I try to make sure the materials for composting are fully wetted before I put them in. Once full, I put the lid on and shut the ring so the lid doesn't fall off as I roll it. I let a barrel sit for two days then start turning it once per day, the more sun you can get on the barrel, the better.

Thanks for taking the time to write this set of posts.  I can tell you put a lot of effort into it.     A lot of information to chew on!

I'd love to get, at least, some chickens.  I have a couple of dogs that are a holy terror, not sure how they would do with goats, sheep or even chickens..though the chickens I could probably keep penned...once I get the hoop house up in spring, chickens are the next big project.

I'm going to try the composting in plastic bags until  I can find a source for free barrels.  

If you are going to use plastic bags, be sure to leave the top open, those things make it really easy for a compost to go anaerobic which is a very bad thing.
It can be done though and the results can be pretty good. Just remember, air is our friend and lack of air is the enemy.

Redhawk

Bryant RedHawk wrote:If you are going to use plastic bags, be sure to leave the top open, those things make it really easy for a compost to go anaerobic which is a very bad thing.
It can be done though and the results can be pretty good. Just remember, air is our friend and lack of air is the enemy.

Redhawk

Ok so I just did a post based on an article from Mother Earth News back in the 1970's.  The author was doing experiments using trash bags, fresh cut greenery and sometimes water to track methane output.

He came to the conclusion that these bags made manure like compost but it was mostly done anaerobically.   What is it about no O2 that's bad.

anaerobic compost will have an excessive number of ciliates, these critters eat bacteria, fungi, nematodes and all the other micro organisms we want to add to the soil.
ciliates thrive in anaerobic conditions only, thus by keeping O2 present we are limiting the ability of "bad" critters to multiply or even survive.

As we find out more about how soil organisms work, we also find out which "accepted" methods are actually more harmful than helpful.

Ok, we have built our soil and have great compost heaps galore which we add as mulch.
We have all the right minerals in adequate quantities
We have hundreds of earthworms tunneling through the soil eating the bacteria, fungi and other organisms upon which they thrive.
The humus, humic acids, decaying organic matter all are working together creating so many spaces for water and air that every organism has everything it needs.
In short, we have a thriving, metropolitan soil for our plants to grow in.
Life is good for our plants, or is it?

If we continue to monitor how our plants grow, we should be able to keep everything in good balance, our minerals and other nutrients will not wash down through the soil because the microorganisms keep them where we want them.
But how do they do that? Well, it is now time to gain some advanced understanding of the Soil Food Web and what all that actually encompasses.
My time has run out for today but I will continue this tomorrow.

Redhawk

Thanks for the great thread, full of crucial knowledge as always Redhawk.  I just wanted to add my 2 cents to the idea of aerated compost tea brewing. The system I use is made up of a food grade, blue 55 gallon barrel, with a lid that has two ports in it ($50), a hydroponic air pump (ecoplus 5 - $70, give or take), and then just a PVC down spout that reaches the bottom of the barrel and splits into two, at which point I can add one or two air stones if I feel like it (I don't, just use the big bubbles coming straight out of the 3/4" PVC, call it maybe $30 tops). This system costs a grand total of $160 to produce, absolute tops, and I have used it for over 4 years with 0 complaints. It makes raucus compost teas in 8-36 hours depending on the external temperature. And I genuinely believe it is one of the most effective ways to use compost. you can, of course, still spread the solid remains after you have brewed them.

I'm curious why you don't think that it is an efficient use of compost Redhawk?

hau Steve, I do believe in and use compost teas, don't know where you got the idea I was against them but I have written in several threads about the excellent results you will get with teas.
Teas are more of an additive and this thread is about getting soil to the point where teas will do an awesome job of filling in the gaps in the microbiome. The next portion of this thread will be about how the microbiome that creates the soil works within itself and the plants that grow in it.
Since soil is a big part of the great circle of life, I felt it would be grand if people could have a good idea of what great soil is made up of and how it has to be present to complete the great circle.
As I get closer to completing this thread we are going to delve into the teas and ways to use them to best advantage for the soil life along with the plant life, I am even going to talk about worms and insects.

I love your set up description, sounds very well thought out and affordable for most people, good job and thanks for posting that here.  

Redhawk

Here we go, the wonderful world of the Soil Food Web.

In the microscopic world there are literally thousands and thousands of organisms we would like to have living in our soil, and sadly just as many that we really hate to see there.
There are millions of different bacteria, some wonderful, some great, some good and then there are bad critters, such as the ciliates, that come to feed on our good bacteria, same goes for fungi, amoeba, flagellates, and so many others it would take a whole thread to list them all.
Fortunately we have methods that can limit the number of "bad guys" so we can have thriving soil an plants.
Compost teas and extracts are the most efficient method of adjusting the numbers to our favor and we will be getting into the best ways to make these along with formulas that are proven later on.
Before we worry about that we need to know how the organisms communicate to each other and how they respond to a plant's needs at any given time.

Most of us here on permies are familiar with the concept of exudates, those chemical signals a plants roots send out as a call to action by the microbiome of the soil that surrounds those roots.
Exudates are secretions of complex sugars that act as a call to bacteria, which eat those complex sugars by breaking them down in the  mitochondria and building the structures the bacteria need to thrive.
They eat and eat and eat, all that they can hold, expelling the portions of the molecules they don't need. Those portions are either picked up by other organisms or the plant roots, depending on the usefulness of them to the plant.
Once the bacteria have filled up, they become targets of all the critters that use bacteria for their food source. If this sounds like predator and prey, it is because that is exactly what it is.
Fungi are multiple organism predators, they will eat predator organisms by wrapping them up in threads of hyphae and dissolve the captured organism, sucking in the nutrients they want and leaving the rest for others to feed on.

Let's take a look at just one little scenario of the soil food web in action.
The roots of say a bell pepper plant needs some phosphorus to be able to create a little more strength in the skin of the fruits it is growing to reproduce.
The roots start excreting some complex sugars that are attractive to the bacteria that like to gather parts of the building blocks of the lignin the plant needs to strengthen the skin of the peppers.
The bacteria start to gobble up the sugars and poop out the leftovers which attract some amoeba that gobble up these bacteria and poop out the leftovers which attract some nematodes that come and eat the amoeba pooping out their leftovers.
Strands of fungal hyphae writhe around, gathering up the leftovers they like to eat, moving the nutrients along their length until they are in the hyphae that are close to the roots that started this chain reaction.
Once the nutrients are close enough the roots impart a type of suction which brings those nutrients into the roots and then those nutrients are moved up the plant until they are at the fruit (pepper) stem junction which transforms those nutrients which are then transported into the fruit skin and it becomes stronger.
The plant roots stop secreting the exudates and the whole micro biome stops the feeding frenzy, waiting on the next call to feed.
While the microbiome relaxes the organisms reproduce and the babies feed on any "leftovers" that still remain in the vicinity. This replenishes the quantity of each organism of the microbiome so they are ready for a new  opportunity to eat.
Each exudate is different in composition which is how the plant can control which bacteria do the feeding and that is how every nutrient is provided to the plant roots and thus to the plant itself.

As you can see, if we want to keep track of the organisms that make our soil their home, we might have good use of a microscope.
A microscope for this use needs to have optics in the 2500X range and it needs to have good illumination along with some filters to be able to see these micron sized critters and a grid would be handy for deriving counts so we can determine how many of each critter we have.
Fortunately such an instrument doesn't cost the proverbial arm and leg. You can get a kit that consist of the microscope, slides, cover slips stains and the tools to put the slides together for under 500.00 US.  
You can spend more (up to thousands) but it really isn't necessary to have a feature rich instrument.
If you do make this purchase you are going to find just how interesting the tiny world is, and you will be prepared to make the best use of any compost teas you decide to use for microbiome adjustments.

To go along with a microscope and the trappings needed to use one, I recommend going to a college book store and making the purchase of a good microbiology text book that focuses on bacteria and the other critters that make soil their home. It will be a worth while purchase.
Such a book will have microphotographs of the bacteria and other organisms which you can use for proper identification of what you are looking at with your microscope.
It doesn't take  much practice to become proficient at using the instrument and the more you use it, the better you will become at using it.
I do want to caution you though, using a microscope is similar to video gaming, it can be habit forming.

until next time.

Redhawk

Bryant RedHawk wrote:Teas are meant to be sprayed as a folar feeding.  This is great if you are treating diseases or infestations, but not the best overall use of your compost.
Extracts are meant to be poured on the soil.  This will condition soil quickly, get the organisms where we want them and it will help them populate the roots of the plants faster.

To be continued.

Redhawk

This is the statement that lead to my question, Redhawk. I apologize if I overstated the case, but I am curious as to why you think that teas are not the best overall use? I have always considered teas to be the most efficient way to use compost so I am curious to hear an opposing opinion from someone with your level of knowledge and experience working with the soil.

hau Stephen,  in the world of teas, the convention is to use teas as a folar feeder not as a soil spray, the reasoning, I suppose is because the relative thinness of the tea as compared to an "extract".
Dr. E. Ingham is very clear in her teachings (as are other teachers like her) that teas are for leaf feeding and extracts are for soil feeding. Since we are friendlies, I will bow to and defend her definitions.
(both extracts and teas are made the same way with one exception, teas are made using less compost by volume than a true extraction which would use up to ten times the amount of compost compared to a tea).
I don't like to run the risk of clogging my plants leaf pores (stomata) by spraying anything on their undersides (where the stomata are located), others do like to use that method, it is a matter of personal preference in my book.

I tend to use what is normally termed an extract, even though I feel it is more likely a thick tea since I have these cool "compost tea bags" from the grain industry.
I fill two cloth grain sample bags (these hold almost 1 gallon by volume) with good quality, nearly finished compost that I've already done a microscope assay on so I know what critters are there and approximately how many of each.
I suspend these in a 55 gal food grade plastic barrel that has two 12 inch long air stones glued to the bottom.
The tubing for these is approx. 1/4 inch ID and I up that to 3/8" ID (which fits snuggly around the outside of the 1/4" tubing) this tubing is attached to the air pump (a large fish tank pump designed for 150 gal and up fish tanks).
I also have a small tank heater and thermometer so I can monitor and adjust the temperature of the brewing liquid (I like mine to be in the 66 to 75 degrees f range).
I fill the barrel to fifty gallons so I have some room to do an initial stirring that gets things going.
I brew for three to four days usually, I do a microscope test on days 2, 3 and if needed 4, I use the "tea" once the bacteria and nematode numbers are fairly high.
If day two shows low numbers of microorganisms, I add some molasses or raw honey (1 cup), If day three still shows low numbers, I add another "tea bag" of compost and stir slowly with a large hickory paddle for about two minutes.
By following these steps I normally end up with a calculated 10 thousand per gallon of nematodes and about 1 million bacteria, fungi tend to be in the same range as nematodes, this of course depends on the numbers of my starting compost.

If I am needing to really increase the organism counts I usually add a bag of composted manures (equal parts hog and donkey into another "tea bag" and dunk that until it is soaked before suspending it with the other bags.

I like to pour these teas or extracts around each plant but I also treat whole beds at the beginning of planting and again once I've put the beds to sleep for the winter (either growing a cover crop or deeply mulched).
So, I suppose that If I were talking with Dr. Elaine Ingham, I would be a user of extracts not a user of teas.
In my mind, both are mostly the same since to take an extract and turn it into a tea you just add more water to dilute the extract.
It really is more sematic I think.

And now I probably have made things clear as mud.

Redhawk

I've covered a lot of information about how to improve soils and what we want mineral wise in that soil.
In essence we feed the soil so those microorganisms we desire to live in the soil have everything they need to thrive.
Doing this, we inadvertently provide superior nutrition for the plants we grow in that soil for food.
Another way of looking at it is that we feed the soil to feed our plants and thus feed ourselves.
The end result is that we end up with balance in the soil that creates balance in our food plants and the food those plants produce which creates balance within our bodies.
From all that, we become healthy and our bodies are able to fight off or kill off diseases that try to invade.
This is what is meant by the great circle of life, organisms are born, thrive, perish, decay which puts the nutrients that made up the organism back into the soil and the whole process begins again.

By building our soil, we can then focus on other things like developing the forest around us to also provide us with food, both plant and animal.
We can spend time away from trying to grow plants, they will do that all on their own because our soil gathers in and holds water and oxygen, the microorganisms recycle the minerals in the soil and feed the plants and the organisms that make soil out of dirt.
We have time to go fishing, hunting, read books, relax how we like to relax.
Our work load has been reduced  because we build our soil, our health has improved greatly because we build our soil, our animals have improved health because we build our soil.
Life, becomes better because we build our soil.

As most here know I am a Native American,  one of the first people (if your in Canada), I have been following the good red road for most all my life and I am an elder person (not a tribal elder).
My culture is one of balance, healing and caretaking of the earth.
This is because in my culture it is what we are supposed to do for if we don't do this our great, great, great, grandchildren will not have a place to live.
In my nation I have been referred to as having great medicine and healing for the people, it is just something that I was supposed to do and so I do it.
I hope that what I have shared in this thread is of use to all who read it, do feel free to copy it and save it for future reference should you want to do that.

I am sure I will do a few more threads of how to heal the earth mother.
pilamayaye (pee-lah-mah-yah-yea) thank you. and remember always Mitakuye oyas'in (We are all related).

Redhawk

That is epic, Bryant.  I am going to chew on that experience for a long time, and a lot of other people will too.
Thanks once again for your contributions to this site and to this planet.  
Blessings,
John S
PDX OR

Thank you, Redhawk. This is a magnificent example of what I take to be the third ethic. It's not surplus, but it is something you are giving freely that gives others the understanding and tools to do more with what they have.

"Give a man a fish, and he eats for today. Teach that man to fish..."

This is true of what you have done here, except that, to extend the analogy, instead of teaching the person to fish, you're teaching that person how to build an aquacultural system that provides all the food that person's family will ever need, and return a surplus of biomass and soil besides.

Or rather, you're teaching the ideas and mechanics of said system, but I digress...

Give a man a thought, and he might use that thought. Teach a man to think...

-CK

Redhawk, that is  a super informative thread, however it it exceeds much what I can read on a screen - I will actually print it.
That said I hope that this question hasn't been asked yet: The term no till refers to the plough as you described it. But what about normal gardeners, those who don't even own a rototiller?
I grew up in Germany and the most important tool for a gardener is a hoe. Does hoeing damages the soil? I hoe each time I sow new seeds and then take a rake and smooth everything out, building a very slightridge around the bed. Is that hurting the soil? What else would I use direct seeding lettuces or carrots or tunips (who wants turnips anyway?) It is a very tempting technique it looks so neat!
No gardening book I read so far described properly how to prepare soil in a no dig garden or weather hoeing counts as no dig. I can't imagine wiggle around a fork a bit and then sow in that rough soil.

Turning over the soil, the way a draught plow or disc works, effectively kills the microbiome, using a hoe correctly to lift and lay back down the soil in the same orientation it had prior to the activity of hoeing does not disrupt the microbiome but actually lets more air infiltrate down into the soil.
Items like the broad fork, the English garden fork or the shuffle hoe also don't disrupt the soil structure because they are not digging down into different strata and putting the lower strata on the surface.

There are instances where a one time use of a plow is not a bad thing, such as when the soil has already been killed previously and you are starting the remediation process. The most effective way to get biologically active compost down into the soil is to lay it on top and plow it in with one single pass.
This will give the dirt that important one time charge of biology that will rapidly get the microbiome jump started.

Redhawk

I really did print out the thread. And I think that all needs a bit more depth, detail and straightening up and it would make a great book!

1. When you write about biological content = 25% do you mean the organic matter content of your soil test? If so, you have a VERY different target than Solomon.
2. The rocks you refer to how big do you mean I usually throw stones in a bucket because they make my carrots crooked.
3. Rock dusts: once again Solomon has a different point of view and according to his calculations they are too much money for what you get - who's right?
4. You suggest taking a bit of forest soil for inocculation - what about Aussie bush soil? This is very different to normal forest soil - what would this do?
5. Lucerne. It seems to be the best awesome cover crop. But in my case, I have fill over swamp, what would it do draw up the goodies or as well the more harmfull (asphalt) stuff with the goodies. The fill is approx. 1-1.5 metres high underneath is swamp.
Another question is super soil for what? Apart from different target levels according to whom you ask veggies probably need a different super soil than fruit or at an extreme Mediterranean herbs. Even some veggies need a different super soil than others.