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 all kinds lurking in dark passages, some with fearsome jaws to snatch the unwary victim, others whose jellylike bodies simply engulf and digest their hapless prey. Of course, our sight would be of little use as soil organisms find their food and communicate with one another by sensing vibrations, surfaces, chemical gradients and even electrical fields.
The diversity of substrates and environmental conditions found in every handful of soil spawns a diversity of adapted organisms that staggers the imagination. The collective vitality, diversity and balance among these organisms make possible the functions of a healthy soil. You can appreciate that plants live with “one foot in each world” – connecting the above- and below-ground realms — and how plants’ roots are soil organisms that play many critical roles in the life of the soil community.
Our part in this extraordinary plant world is to encourage a healthy, diverse soil community that efficiently makes nutrients available to the plants, protects plant roots from pests and disease and helps protect the global environment from some of the excesses of the human species.
I like the idea of that our role is to ensure functional redundancy, or the presence of several organisms to carry out each task. This leads to both ecosystem stability and resilience. Ecosystem stability describes the ability of soils even in the face of wide variations in environmental conditions and inputs to continue to perform such functions as the cycling of nutrients, assimilation of organic wastes and maintenance of soil structure. Resilience describes the ability of the soil to “bounce back” to functional health after a severe disturbance has disrupted normal processes.
This is why it’s so extremely important to introduce and maintain diversity to your soil. We are bound to have wider variations in temperatures, including extreme high heat days. If our crops can weather these extreme occurrences in a manner that minimizes reduced yields and degradation of crop quality, then we are far ahead of the game — and that’s exactly what ecosystem stability and resilience are all about. Frankly, it’s like having a buffer or an insurance policy in place for protection.
We’ve had considerable feedback from growers that when they’ve applied our compost tea, fish hydrolysateand microbial foliar and fertigation products, they have seen a measurable positive difference in crop yield and quality during high-stress periods.