Soil Food Web (SFW)

By any rational measure, this world belongs to microbes. They were mastering the subtleties of evolution three billion years before the first multicellular organism appeared. They continue to evolve and adapt in a tiny fraction of the time it takes us to reproduce once. They flourish in polar ice caps, in boiling water, and amid radioactive waste. We exist only because some of them find us useful. Up to 90% of the cells in our bodies are bacteria. The entirety of human evolution has taken place in an environment saturated with microbes, and humans are so firmly adapted to the routine of sheltering allies and rebuffing enemies that the removal of either can devastate our defense systems.  

We take this for granted in our everyday lives. As a further example, it’s estimated that there are as many as 100 trillion cells of bacteria in a human intestinal tract at any one time in a normal individual not on antibiotics. To give you an idea of the size of that number, there are about 100 trillion cells in the entire human body. Who would have guessed that up to half of the cells in our bodies are comprised of other life forms? Similarly, according to the book “Teaming with Microbes”, an acre of good garden soil contains several pounds of small mammals; 133 pounds of protozoa; 900 pounds each of earthworms and arthropods; 2000 pounds of bacteria; and 2400 pounds of fungi. Wow. Try digging up a couple of spots in your lawn or garden, if you don’t see an earthworm you’ve got some work to do.

The bottom line here, and all drama aside, is that microorganisms are directly responsible for all that we experience on Earth…everything. For a telling slideshow on this idea see here.

Lichens are the familiar fuzzy multicolored stuff you see on rocks and trees in the woods. They are an amazing representation of nature in that fungi and algae undertake a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. The algae feeds the pair by producing food via photosynthesis, while the fungi utilizes its enzymes to break down the rock, and uses its hyphae to root the marriage in place for a happy life of biological weathering. The result of this primal activity is the creation of an environment below our feet where life can further assist in the processing and utilization of minerals, humus, and decaying organic matter, to result in the platform for life, or, soil.

It is this “dirt” produced by this “life” that feeds our mouths every day. Plants benefit so much from their relationship with microorganisms that up to 70% of the food they create from photosynthesis is used to attract them, by way of sugars termed “exudates” that ooze from root tips and leaves. More than half of the food a plant makes for itself is used to attract what the large majority of "gardening products" attempts to eliminate. Can we call that a definition of irony?

From boulders to soil they have taken us, yet we seem to strive to discourage and destroy our microscopic friends with our synthetic budget fertilizers and -cides. The salts in cheap synthetic fertilizers actually cause microorganisms to loose water violently via osmosis, resulting in death; and the –cides just kill them outright. When we recognize that over 90% of the food grown in the US is produced with artificial materials and our soils are being used as if they are merely a gigantic sponge in which we can dump petroleum-based industrial by-products, maybe we can begin to combat the problems of degernative dis-ease and empty food that we have created.

The disconnect here is that these products make the plant grow bigger, or, make the weed go away tomorrow; meaning there is very little opportunity to make the connection that they are aiding in the vicious cycle, that they are resulting in death, dis-ease, and pests in the landscape, from moles or fleas to compaction and brown spot.

To be completely clear, the artificial products we use in our landscapes actually resulting in pest infestations and dis-ease outbreaks via weakening the mineral and biological balance of the ecosystem.

Microorganisms are very small. Up to 500,000 single-celled bacteria can fit inside the period in the exclamation point at the end of this sentence! The microscopic network of life we are striving to nurture is called the Soil Food Web (SFW). Each organism represents a “trophic level”, think big fish/ little fish in the ocean. Without adequate life on respective levels the other ones suffer and starve. For example, if you experience thatch in your lawn it’s basically the soil telling you it cannot decompose what you leave on it, or, that it’s dead. Similarly, a living soil does not become compacted and needs annual aeration, which is common practice in synthetic approaches, so much so that we have come to expect it. Parasites and dis-ease thrive in this void of vitality. If you have no life in your soil, you have no earthworms. If you have no earthworms, you have no birds…you get the idea.

Why should we expect materials made in a lab or by-products of industry to nurture the life we desire from our gardens and ecosystems?? Further, if our intuition tells us that these materials are not beneficial to our environments, why do we use them?

Next time you go to use a product in the lawn or garden read the label and ask yourself if it is something a microorganism would like to eat? Remember, just because it says “bio-degradable” doesn’t mean it’s good for the environment. Look up the ingredients on the label if you have to and do not hesitate to ask questions. If not, you are discouraging the first lines of defense in nature and a vital opportunity to allow the natural systems of checks and balances to help foster healthy plants and nutrient dense food in your landscape or garden.

 It makes sense doesn’t it?