Living Soil = “Biological”

Industrial Agriculture has focused on Soil Chemistry while largely neglecting their Soil Biology (i.e. Soil ‘Life’). Scientific research has shown how Soil Microbes are responsible for bringing Nutrients and Trace-Minerals into the Food-Chain and, how synthetic chemical fertilisers are ‘killing-off’ living soil microbiology, thus reducing crop nutritional health. This is leading Modern Agriculture to look toward ‘Biological’ Farming approaches to “Living Soil” with the understanding there are more microbes in a handful of soil then humans on the planet. Soil biology digest and provide nutrients needed by plants, much like the microbes in the rumen of a cow, or the human gut microbiota.

(Soil Health Institute 2018 ‘Living Soil Film’)

 

Living Microbes = “Microbiome”

At the turn of this century DNA research discovered the existence of a ‘Microbiome’, essentially a second us, with more microbes then cells in our own body that are as unique as a fingerprint and have been referred to as another organ. Microbes are very simple organisms usually with the genetic code to perform only one task. They communicate by measuring the population density of microbes in the environment with the same code vs without. Their life strategy is to lay dormant in wait for a signal to ‘turn-on’ when their numbers build up to a trigger point for simultaneous action, known as Quorum Sensing.

(Bonnie Bassier 2009 TED ‘How bacteria talk’)

 

Living Genetics = “Epigenetics”

Science now recognise a dual inheritance of Genetics (i.e. DNA) and ‘Epigenetics’ (Epi= above). Environmental factors can result in a change to cell function that alter how genes are expressed without altering the underlying DNA sequence, known as cell plasticity, and Epigenetics shows this can pass on through inheritance. Metabolic changes support these adaptations with the use of microbial metabolites that play a crucial role, for example with immune cell regulation of gene expression using enzymatic degradation of molecules by probiotic bacteria to suppress virulence factors, known as Quorum Quenching. (Dr Christine Jones 2019 ‘Quorum Sensing in the Soil Microbiome’)

 

Living Health = “Nutrition”

We are beginning to understand how Healthy plants can become increasingly resistant to pests and disease when given access to balanced nutrition with a healthy Microbiome. In Agriculture today up to 80% of disease and insect pressure stems from a current excess use of chemical fertilisers that use soluble salts which strongly shift the delicate equilibria of the soil-food-web and shut down or impair sensitive microbial partnerships. Plant Sap analysis has the potential to measure plant nutrition in real time with technology evolving to bring it out into the field so that farmers have a tool to manage ‘Balanced Nutrition’. This will give farmers access to a complete management system when combined with biological farming practices to provide a healthy Microbiome that will also reduce our reliance on pesticides into the future as well as decrease water pollution caused by excess nitrate fertiliser in farm run-off.

(John Kempf 2011 AdvancingEcoAg.com)

 

Living Fertilisers = “Bio-Active”

Our living fertilisers are made using the biological activity of fermentation by probiotic microbes to produce ‘Bio-Active Nutrients and Trace-Minerals’. They therefore contain microbial metabolites marking the activity of a large number of microbes. Thus, their application can act as a Bio-Stimulant because, by ‘Simulating’ the presence of a large number of microbes they can trigger Quorum Sensing to allow those microbes that are present in the environment, but laying dormant, to “switch-on”. Our living fertilisers are also able to improve soils by “Foliar Feeding Plants to Feed Soil Microbes” as we begin to understand how plants use soil microbes that manipulate the environment in their rhizosphere to make Nutrient and Trace-Mineral species Bio-available.

(Olivier Husson 2020 ‘Eh-pH and Plant Health’)

 

Living Plants = “Rhizophagy”

Plants use sunlight to grow with Photosynthesis that make sugars (a solid of Carbon (C), Hydrogen (H) and, Oxygen (O)) out of water (a liquid of H and O) that they source from the soil through their roots, and carbon dioxide (a gas of C and O) that they source from the air through their leaves. Science is discovering how plants release some of these sugars (C6H12O6) through their roots as a sugary-carbon food source to feed the soil-food-web. ‘Rhizophagy’ documents how plant roots eat whole microbes consuming them through the root-tip and going on to farm some of these microbes back out into the soil through root-hairs to trade plant sugary-carbon for a steady supply of additional nutrients and trace-minerals.

(Dr James F White 2018 ‘The Rhizophagy Cycle’)

 

Living Roots = “Mycorrhizosphere”

Root growth push delicate new cells forward at the meristem tip by protecting them with root cap cells that continually rupture and fall away as root mucilage, attracting high concentrations of soil microbes that take in these minerals by assimilation and release them by mineralisation. Root hairs are located just behind the root tip and have a relatively short life span of a few days to a few weeks. Actively growing feeder roots are continually renewing to uptake nutrients mineralised in the root epidermis. An individual plant root accessing 1 to 2 cubic centimeters of soil in the rhizosphere can increase this up to 12-15 cubic centimeters by trading sugary carbon with fungi for symbiotic associations with mycorrhizal hyphae in the ‘Mycorrhizosphere’.

(Michael Phillips 2017 ‘Mycorrhizal Planet’)

 

Living Shoots = “Biochemical”

Parasitic fungi can establish ongoing feeding relationships with living cells of a host plant rather then killing them, known as biotrophic organisms causing leaf mildew and rust diseases. The hyphal peg (tip) invade host cells by pushing first through the waxy cuticle and then the plant cell wall to branch out into the semi permeable cell membrane to feed on soluble amino acids and simple sugars. Plant defenses require trace-minerals to act as the co-factors for enzymes to upgrade amino acids into more complex proteins that can then become embedded in the cell membrane to be safely stored away from pathogenic protoplasm. This type of healthy plant metabolism is impaired by chemical fertilisers that break down the soil-food-web and deplete the trace minerals required for ‘Biochemical’ sequencing.

(Walter Jehne 2022 ‘Talking Nitrogen with Soil Microbiologist’)

 

Living Fruit = “Bio-Control”

Necrotrophic fungi causing rots and molds on fruits and vegetables do not produce specalised penetration structures but rather invade plant tissue through cracks in a weak cuticle or sting wounds from insects. This will not happen if the cuticle is strong and insects are not drawn to feed on incomplete proteins, for example healthy plants with balanced nutrition and a healthy microbiome. In the absence of chemical pesticide and fungicide sprays friendly organisms can colonise the surface of plant leaves, shoots, flowers and fruits taking up valuable real estate and acting by ‘competitive exclusion’ to prevent air borne pathogens from landing and getting a foot hold. Furthermore, this friendly biofilm of beneficial microorganisms can secrete antimicrobial substances that act as a ‘Bio-Control’ to further stop invasion by disease fungi and bacteria.

(Michael Phillips 2012 ‘The Holistic Orchard’