The Helpful Gardener
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Ch. 15 Tools for Restoration and Maintenance

We begin to learn from Jeff how to put back together what we have rended asunder...

and the answer is... (wait for it....wait for it...)

Composts. 8)

I feel vindicated.

Jeff goes into the characters that make this such an amazing tool for gardeners and even Ol HG learned a thing or two before this chapter was out. But I was waiting for the next one...
Last edited by The Helpful Gardener on Fri Apr 30, 2010 8:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Toil
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HG I'd love to hear what you learned!

or is that in the next chapter?

out with it!

The Helpful Gardener
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Well I was not up to speed on Frankia and just how important actinobacter were to the nitrogen cycle in general, that cyanobacteria were as crucial to water retention as they are, or about the PGPRs and their role in promoting root growth. All new info to me...

So lots... :D

HG

Toil
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My list is about twice as long... basically everything!

thanks Jeff!

garden5
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This chapter was an interesting look at the potential future of the gardening products industry. An optimistic, look, at that.

When reading about the frankia and the rhizobia, it occurred to me that another way of doing a genera check of your soil's bacterial population was to check out the roots of our legumes. If there are a lot of root nodules, then perhaps we could assume that we have a fair amount of bacteria in our soils. The opposite might prove true, as well.

Now, to me, the cyanobacteria are a bacteria that benefit the soil food web by binding soil particles together with their slime. Correct me if I'm wrong, but they seem like algae. I have a question about the last sentence on these : "Imagine products that improve soil structure, absorb up to ten times their weight in water, and can protect plants from drought and adverse conditions." OK, how is their ability to absorb large amounts of water beneficial to the plants if the water is locked up in the bacteria? Is this because the release the water in the form of "slime," which may be better than water at keeping plants hydrated, or is it assuming that the water will be released when the bacteria are consumed? Basically, how do these bacteria "protect plants from drought" if they are absorbing the water, which seems like it would mean less there for the plants :? ? I'm not questioning the book at all, I'm sure there's something wrong with my understanding of the process.

Just the other day, I came across an article (which I posted in the Organic Gardening Forum) on the effects of a phosphorous-solubilizing bacteria and fungi inoculation into a strawberry patch. This inoculation was found to yield a greater harvest than just the human addition of phosphorous fertilizer. This article on them shows that they actually work together to deliver even more of a nutritional benefit to the plants.

The Helpful Gardener
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G5, you have to consider the life span of your average microbe. Some of them it's hours, others are maybe days. As we find microbes that store this or that, they are doing for short spans and releasing their caches pretty quickly, putting it back in the soil food web, assuming they live to "old" age, pretty unlikely in the jungle that is living soil...

Not less for plants; these guys live right around the roots in numbers three times higher than just a few microns away from the root. Plants exude root exudates to attract all manner of soil critters, reaping the benefits of ANY mortality in their vicinity...

It's all good

HG

garden5
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OK, I get it now. I immensely mis-judged how long a soil microbe lives. Thanks for clearing that up.



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