Living Dirt

Got that microscope ready? Now go out into your field or garden and get a teaspoon of plain ol’ dirt.

Spread this onto a plate and put your eye to the scope and behold...what do you see?

Life! Can’t see any life? Better adjust your focus! After all, even if your soil is sick there should be at least 100 million living creatures in that teaspoon of dirt! And if it is healthy, that number could swell to 1 billion! Bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, soil arthropods, and if you struck it rich, your teaspoon of soil might just contain life forms visible without the aid of a microscope, like an earthworm or other creepy-crawly.

You need not feel like a dummy if you cannot count all the varieties of life you are looking at in your microscope. After all, the different kinds of soil bacteria number about 25,000, although there are “only” about 8000 species of fungi that can be found in dirt. And then there are the protozoa and nematodes...

I confess that I used to think dirt was dirt. When I “got smart”, I realized that there are different chemical compositions of the grains of dirt, which made for diverse soil types. Now I realize that I wasn’t so smart after all. I mean like, I am really a Kindergärtner in soil biology! The facts I am quoting are from the article, “A Fresh Look at Life below the Surface”, in issue no. 96 of ECHO Development Notes. And this article is but a 7-page synopsis of a week-long seminar.

Let me share with you a few more facts that astounded me.

“No known organism on the planet is more concentrated in nitrogen than bacteria.”

So, want to add nitrogen to your soil? Dump on some 46-0-0, right? That could be one way. But another more natural way is to increase the amount of bacteria—the right kind—to your dirt. Or, just add some fungi, which happen to be the second most concentrated form of nitrogen.

Now, since we have added some nitrogen-rich bacteria, the protozoa do their job, which is eat the bacteria. On consuming the bacteria—about 10,000 per day—these protozoa then release ammonia ions into the soil. And they don’t even charge you for their work!

Is not that a great deal? An estimated 40-80% of the nitrogen found in a plant has its origin in protozoa preying upon bacteria.

And then there are the fungi, the largest living creatures on this planet. Fungi? Largest living creatures? Maybe your thinking I have been reading to many sci-fi novels...

But one fungi can actually stretch itself across several acres of forest floor, linked together by small hair-like connections. Now, put fungi-eating nematodes into this forest floor and what do you get? (Remember, fungi are the second most concentrated form of nitrogen...)

Nitrogen, available now for plants to use! Beneficial nematodes can produce up to 150lbs of N/acre/year.

What is a practical application to all these figures and facts? In one experiment carried out in Honduras, coffee production jumped 30% by the simple addition of Mycorrhizae fungi into the soil.

Not only do these microbial life forms add nutrients to the soil, they also open channels and pores by which oxygen penetrates into the ground. This in turn allows the aerobic bacteria their much needed “breath”. Without any “breath”, they die and anaerobic bacteria then take over, creating an imbalance. This happens to soil that is water-logged, which is one reason poorly drained soil does not do as well for many crops.

Now we get to the crux of the whole matter. On what do these very important millions of creatures feed upon in that teaspoon of soil? You guessed it! Organic matter: rotting debris.

I never realized that applying compost to a patch of ground did more than boost the NPK levels. It does a WHOLE lot more than that; it adds living organisms to the soil, which multiply and spread throughout the surrounding matter. It is like adding a pinch of yeast to a mound of dough. The yeast grows and multiplies and soon the whole batch is infected.

So keep throwing that manure and compost onto your fields. Yes, you are adding NPK, but you are also adding something a whole lot more valuable: the ability for the soil to make NPK by itself. The dependency on outside sources for fertilization suddenly diminishes!

And if we are talking sustainability, this makes for a lot of sense.