If our bodies were small enough to enter the tiny passages in the soil, we would discover a world populated by a wild array of creatures, all fiercely competing for every leaf, root, fecal pellet and dead body that reaches the ground. We would also find predators of...
Articles
Organic Matter Is Key to Improving Crop Margins
Many of our farms have declined to 1 percent or less organic matter in their soils. That’s alarming when the pasture land right next door likely has 5 to 6 percent organic matter. In my past newsletters, I’ve addressed over-tillage, lack of cover crops, and high...
Micronutrients Help Plants Battle Environmental Stress and Disease
Crops require 16 essential elements to grow properly. Three elements -- carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (0) -- are derived from air and water and comprise 94.0% to 99.5 % of fresh plant tissue. The remaining 13 nutrients, which come from the soil in the form of...
Big players preach soil biology at Biocontrols Conference
I just returned from the Biocontrols Conference held just outside San Diego, in Carlsbad. This is the second time I’ve attended this conference, and it’s a very well run event. There was a panel discussion involving Materra Farming Company, Duncan Family Farms,...
Let It Breathe: The Importance of Soil Respiration
Healthy soils have a high rate of respiration. Soil respiration refers to the production of carbon dioxide by soil organisms. This includes respiration of plant roots, the rhizosphere, microbes and fauna. The concentrations of both O2 and CO2 are largely dependent on...
Making It Stick: Glue-Making Fungi Build Crucial Soil Aggregates
The function of soil is to help grow crops by holding water and supplying nutrients. We all know how important it is to have soil that can “breathe.” The roots of a plant will die without oxygen. In a process that creates vital “spacing” in the soil, bacteria use glue...
A Message to Our Customers – Past, Present and Future
Hello Andaman Ag Blog Readers, I hope this finds you well and prospering! I have to apologize for sending out an aggregate sales email to everyone. I would much prefer to send you each an individual email, but that would require being chained to my desk/computer for...
This Year, Resolve to Kick the Chemical Habit
Happy New Year! Andaman Ag would like to wish all of you a very successful new season! Maybe you saw the recent news about a California court stopping a state program that allowed pesticide spraying at schools, organic farms and backyards across California. The court...
The New Year, Time to Commit to Soil Resolutions
If you’re a regular reader of our newsletters, you’re aware of our continued push to improve organic matter in your soils given all the wonderful benefits to plant growth and health, including the ability to store water, nitrogen and phosphorus and the acceleration of...
Good Microbes vs. Bad: Antibiotics for the Soil
In my last newsletter, I talked about how the introduction (inoculation) of new microbes can benefit poor soils and struggling crops. On the other side of the coin, devastating fungi, bacteria and other microbial parasites can contribute to a host of crop diseases. In...