Life Flows Upward from Healthy Soil
Hart Hagan
Healthy Soil is the Foundation of Life on Land and is the Key to Cooling Our Climate
Healthy soil starts with a healthy soil food web, including an estimated 7200 pounds of microorganisms (bacteria, algae, fungi, protozoa, etc.) per acre
“When you are standing on soil, you are standing on the roof of another world.” --Christine Jones, PhD, Australian soil scientist
Here is an astounding set of facts and data.
“... an acre of good garden soil teems with life, containing several pounds (about 1 kilogram) of small mammals; 133 pounds of protozoa; 900 pounds each of earthworms, arthropods, and algae; 2000 pounds of bacteria; and 2400 pounds of fungi.” --Teaming With Microbes, the Organic Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
If your goal is to restore a land-based ecosystem, e.g., forest, farm, grassland or home landscape, we need to understand that the smaller organisms constitute most of the weight, most of the biomass.
And the biomass that starts in the microscopic elements flows to the charismatic plants and animals that we can see and appreciate.
Ecologist and filmmaker John D. Liu taught me that in any given location, biodiversity is a function of biomass and organic matter. If we want biodiversity, then we need biomass and organic matter. These three things are correlated. So if we care about biodiversity, we will ignore biomass and organic matter at our peril.
Biodiversity is the variety of living things. Biomass is the weight of living things. And organic matter, aka, necromass, refers to the quantity of once-living things.
As opposed to what?
Well, many people today are talking like what our forests need most is a reduction in biomass. They call it “fuel” and even “hazardous fuel.” It’s a pro-logging narrative. But people are fooled by it because we can’t see that removing biomass (e.g., trees) means reducing the biomass, which invariably reduces the biodiversity.
Please see this article: The Myth Of "Most Western Forests Were Open and Park-like", by George Wuerthner. On Substack.
In our farmland, we heavily subsidize tillage, chemical fertilizers and agrochemicals, all of which reduce the soil organic matter, on the theory that whenever you violate Gabe Brown’s Five Principles of Soil Health, you are reducing the soil organic matter.
Please see this video featuring Gabe Brown: Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem with Gabe Brown Part 1, The 5 Tenets of Soil Health
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A&t=5669s
In our home landscapes, we mow and use lawn chemicals which reduce the plant matter and degrade the soil, leaving nothing for wildlife to eat and no place for them to nest.
We would do well to understand the importance of healthy soil in our farms, forests and home landscapes.
Let’s unpack the quote from Lowenfels and Lewis:
Good garden soil contains over 2 pounds of small mammals. That’s a small fraction of what a human weighs.
But the small mammals, the earthworms and the “arthropods” (including insects, pill bugs, millipedes and their larvae) eat the carcasses and the excretions of arthropods, algae and bacteria.
If you add together all of the microscopic elements of the soil food web, you get over 7200 pounds of living microscopic organisms in every acre of garden soil.
The same is going to be true in most forests and most farmland.
So, where does life come from on land? It starts with the soil microorganisms, who can only live in healthy soil.
And yet, when do people talk about healthy soil in forestry or in home landscaping circles?
From where I sit, hardly anyone talks about it, outside of regenerative agriculture.
But healthy soil is largely a key to cooling our climate, because the soil is the key to healthy, vigorous plant growth. Plants cast shade and transpire water. They also drive our water cycles, from evaporation, to condensation, to cloud formation and precipitation.
Healthy water cycles require plants, in abundance. Plants in turn make healthy soil. Healthy soil not only grows healthy plants, but also absorbs monumental amounts of carbon and water.
Healthy soil is the key to solving both flooding and drought. Healthy soil soaks up rainfall, thus preventing both flooding and drought.
And I would wager that this present European heat wave would be largely manageable if landowners and managers would give healthy soil its due regard.
Imagine a continent through which water flows because we have paid attention to soil health and rich ecosystems. That is a continent that would be largely immune to extreme heat waves, IMHO.
Recommended resources:
Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown
Regenerative Soil by Matt Powers
Teaming with Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
Here is my conversation with Jeff Lowenfels:
JEFF LOWENFELS | Organic Gardening & the Soil Food Web
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw3Jh2thetY&t=854s
If you would like to continue this conversation, please consider joining me for this online webinar:
How & Why to Build Healthy Soil, Friday, July 24 — 3:00–4:30 PM (Eastern Time, US)
https://harthagan.kit.com/3afd60ebe2