It’s time to explain soil biology. This blog is incomplete without it.
The first thing you need to know is that the ground you walk on is not just dirt – it’s an ecosystem.
There is an entire world under your feet. Organisms from the tiniest bacterium to the scariest looking beetle live in the soil, and they are vital to the continued existence of life on earth.
The food web begins with the smallest creatures: bacteria and fungus. These guys harvest nutrients from unusable sources. They eat the rocks and dead plant matter so that you don’t have to. When they eat their food, they store nutrients in their bodies and go about living their life.
Then they’re eaten. Predators like protozoa, nematodes, and arthropods make a meal out of these smaller critters. The predators take the nutrients they need from the little guy and then excrete the rest in a converted form that is available for plants to use. On and on up the food chain, predators eat prey, consistently making more nutrients available in a form that plants can use. Plants then make nutrients available for us to use as well. This is called a nutrient cycle.
If this food chain is interrupted, nutrients stop cycling. Organisms starve. When they’re missing essential nutrients, they get sick, and they die. This has a ripple effect all the way up the food chain, and it’s why we humans face diseases stemming from malnutrition.
There are hundreds of ways this ecosystem can be (and has been) interrupted. What I find fascinating is what can happen when everything goes right.
Here’s the potential:
At the very smallest level, you can improve your local ecosystem. Get the biology right, and you can grow an amazing garden, complete with all the nutrients you need to be healthy. In addition, plants and trees and wildlife around you become healthier. Say goodbye to the sick yellow-green of an unhealthy plant, and say hello to the lush, deep green that radiates life. You can mitigate drastic climate issues like flooding because water will be absorbed instead of running off of (and away with) the soil. You can increase the quality and the yield of your crops, and also decrease inputs and costs at the same time.
In a larger scope, bringing life and fertility back to the soil could cure many diseases associated with malnutrition, alleviate poverty and completely revolutionize the agricultural industry.
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