Invasion of the Soil Scientists

December 13^th, 2011

While I have been working on farms and with farmers for nearly the past three years, it is here in India that I finally realized what farming is all about. I have realized now more than ever that growing agricultural soils is at least if not more important than growing the food itself. Through all the different compost recipes I have learned at Navdanya and the preparation for the next plot the importance of the soil structure has really been stressed. This idea was confirmed when an awesome couple from the United States came to the farm. Marilyn is a soil scientist and Chris is a first grade teacher (check out their website: www.hummingbirdproject.org!). They came to Navdanya during the recent Gandhi and Globalization course with a mission to set Navdanya up with a proper soil lab.

While setting up the soil lab Marilyn and Chris graciously tested their knowledge of the Soil Foodweb on us. I will be forever grateful for what I learned in those two days. The pretty basic science behind the fact that the soil is full of micro-organisms had pretty much left my mind since the last time I had a biology course. The knowledge they shared really made me realize how important building healthy soil is to the health of our food and plants. The top 8” of soil contain “The Big 6” micro-organisms → Bacteria, Fungi, Protozoa, Nematodes, Arthropods, and Earthworms. More or less, these micro-organisms all exist in the top 8” of healthy top soil and are continuously moving.

Another interesting fact is that different plants prefer different micro-organisms. By building healthy compost piles we can then add either fungal or bacterial soil to the plants that need those soils the most. Plants such as kale and broccoli and cabbage prefer bacterial soils where as strawberries and maple trees prefer fungal soils. Corn prefers a 1:1 ratio of bacteria:fungi in the soil. Chris and Marilyn also took the afternoon to teach us all how to make a proper compost pile. We were looking to increase the amount of fungi so we added a lot of brown material such as fallen leaves (carbon). A fun fact about carbon is that only leaves that fall from the tree on their own contain carbon. If leaves are picked and then laid out to dry they will still by nitrogen heavy. This is because while leaves are still green the tree is sending them nitrogen, but once leaves are ready to fall they are sending all the nitrogen back into the roots. Or that's at least how I understood it. And while most of this might be common knowledge for some, I am finding it absolutely fascinating... and want to sign up for a soil sciences class now! For more bacteria we would add green material to our compost pile such as food scraps and grass clippings (nitrogen). Another fun fact is that one shovelful of compost contains more diversity than the Amazon Rainforest.

Finally, Chris and Marilyn took us to the fields of Navdanya to test out the soils that have been grown at Bija Vidyapeeth over the years. We took soil samples from four places in the farm and then took the samples to the microscope they carried with them all the way here to observe the micro-organisms. Our samples included: the turmeric field which is now a big field of mulch; a freshly plowed field; the kitchen garden that is plowed much less than the rest of the farm; and finally the bamboo forest on the edge of the farm that has never been plowed or sown. There were no astonishing findings, but the freshly plowed field contained a few bad guy fungi (there is a difference, but we didn't get that in depth), the kitchen garden contained a lot of bacteria, and both the turmeric field and the bamboo forest contained some good fungi. Marilyn explained that tilling the soil can often disrupt the micro-organisms and can break them up causing them to be less prevalent, hence the theories of practicing no-till farming.

Anyways, like I said much of this is somewhat common knowledge but there are some very important practices I think we must remember when trying to grow healthy plants. The practice of building soil is ever-important if we want to grow healthy and sustainable food systems. Inorganic fertilizers are all salt based, and salt kills micro-organisms which just leads to a chain of events needing to continue adding more fertilizer. It is important to remember that good healthy soil can be grown just by combining our food and field waste products, as well. While growing healthy compost might take more time in some cases it is much more worth it in the future. Thanks Chris and Marilyn for the life lesson!

Making our soil sample slides!

The soil is alive! A possible siting of fungi under Chris and Marilyn's microscope.

The group building a fungal heavy compost pit next to the soil lab!