Soil Fertility Seminar - Day 2

So we have now covered more chemistry than at first year uni, and the words bacteria, fungi, protozoa, good guy nematodes, flagelletes, ciliates and microarthopods roll off my tounge like butter.

Now we start covering food and healthy environments for the good guys. Bacteria love nitrates (NO3) while fungi like nitrites (NH4). But get too much food, and you have bacteria and/or fungi growing too fast, and you run out of air. Then you go anaerobic and lose all of your good guys. So, hello!, when a horse does a poo, it drops on the ground, there is a high concentration of NO3s, bacteria multiply too fast, soil goes anaerobic, good guys die, bad guys prosper and weeds flourish. Go capeweed!

If you do go anaerobic, you get bad smells. Rotten egg gas, sour milk, and so on. Trust your nose. If it stinks, leave it alone. It is bad.

If you have a worm farm, and you get liquid coming out the bottom, watch out! This is not compost tea. This is anearobic residue. Compost must be 70% moisture in order not to go anaerobic. (Add some shreded paper to your worm farm. Worms LOVE paper.)

This brings me to worms. Worms (can be seen by the naked eye, yay) eat everything in their path. Bacteria and fungi included. Good guys and bad guys. But then the good guys are nurtured in the worm's stomach, while the bad guys are destroyed. Then the worm's casting contains just the good guys, ready to grow and play. In addition, worms are covered by a light layer of slime. This slime allows good bacteria and fungi to grow, and get this, it kills e.Coli. Yep. Dr Elaine did an experiment testing just this.

We also cover mycorhizzal - an innoculant for plants. This is so cool. And apparently, if you have good guys in the soil, you will have good guys on the leaves. The good guys destroy pests. Yes, flies and mites become white fuzz balls. I told you it was cool.