Friday, April 3, 2015

Black Cottage Cheese

This post isn't about some new funky probiotic food, it is about soil aggregation.

What is soil aggregation? Read on...

Healthy soil should look like black cottage cheese. The curds in the black cottage cheese are the soil aggregates.

The aggregates are held together by Mycorrhizal fungi that improve aggregate stability, build soil carbon, improve water infiltration and increase the efficiency of nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur use by the plants.

These aggregates are destroyed by heavy tillage and are promoted by judicious use of cover crops.
The soil will create these aggregates for free if we create the right environment.

Mycohrrizal fungi can be increased by:
  1. Eliminating chemical use
  2. Reduce tillage
  3. Eliminate synthetic fertilizers
  4. Have a living cover crop on the soil as much as possible
Sounds like an organic system to me.



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