It’s alive!
Many people don’t realize that soil, especially healthy soil, is full of life. Millions of species and billions of organisms make up a complex and diverse mix of microscopic and macroscopic life that represents the greatest concentration of biomass anywhere on the planet. Bacteria, algae, microscopic insects, earthworms, beetles, ants, mites, and fungi are among them. All together, their value has been estimated at $1.5 trillion a year worldwide.
Like other living creatures, the organisms in the soil also need food and shelter. Some feed on dead organic matter, and some eat other microbes. As a group, they cycle nutrients, build the soil and give it structure. The healthiest soils are those with a diversity and abundance of life. Farmers with the healthiest soils nurture that life by creating a diversity of plant life above the soil surface, with year-round ground cover, no tillage, and judicious pesticide use.
Farming for the microbes that care for us
Estimates vary, but if you could weigh all the organisms in the top six inches of soil on an acre of land, you’d find they would weigh between 2,500 pounds to more than 5,000 pounds, depending on how healthy the soil is. That is a LOT of life. What these low-lying creatures lack in size, they make up for in numbers. Consider bacteria, the soil microbes with the highest numbers, for example. You can fit 40 million of them on the end of one pin. In fact, there are more soil microorganisms (microbes for short) in a teaspoonful of soil than there are people on the earth.
Understanding that the soil is full of life is a game-changer for farmers who are farming with healthy soils in mind. For those producers, farming centers around feeding the organisms that build healthy soils. These farmers understand that tillage, the turning of the soil that has been the standard for growing crops for years and years, is disruptive to soil microbes and destructive to the soil system. Instead, they disturb the soil as little as possible. And, they grow a diversity of living plants in the soil as much of the time as practical, covering the soil and offering food to soil microbes through living roots. Those soil organisms, in turn, cycle nutrients back to the plant, allowing it to grow and flourish. It’s a natural, symbiotic system that leads to healthy soils and more sustainable and profitable agriculture.
To learn more about soil health, and to meet some of the farmers who are “Unlocking the Secrets in the Soil,” visit www.nrcs.usda.gov.