Darren Doherty mentioned this study yesterday. The long short is by introducing a fungal based compost into soils you can make soils much more productive in terms of biomass produced and it can be done on a large scale. What is it that makes Johnson’s compost so unique? “It’s not so much making the compost, but it was the change in plant growth we observed when we shifted the soil microbial community structure, moving it from bacterial-dominated to fungal,” Johnson said. “That’s what we’re now trying to do in agriculture – trying to shift the microbial community structure in soils.” This isn’t accomplished by applying compost, as that is not practical for the large acreages agricultural producers manage. Instead, the Institute of Sustainable Agricultural Research is trying to implement this change by growing it into the soil. “This is basically how soils evolve – different plants will come in and grow, and they’ll have a certain influence on that soil, as far as being able to increase the carbon content. That seems to be the key here,” Johnson said. “The carbon plants capture using the CO2 in the atmosphere is an energy substrate. Soil organisms, like our society, depend on energy. As you add more energy into the system, you increase population density. A little more energy, you change the population structure, diversity develops and you begin to get specializations. When you achieve sufficient energy resources, you start to notice mutualisms between plants and soil microbes.” Source: newscenter.nmsu.edu/…/nmsu-researcher-s-carbon-seque… One of Davids write ups can be found here. web.nmsu.edu/…/Carbon%20Sequestration%20with%20IP%20…
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 22:39:54 +0000
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