[Terrapreta] John Cowan's comments

[Sean K. Barry]

Dear Dr. Karve,

You refuse to give me a direct answer to my question at the top of my previous E-MAIL.

"Specifically what are the "minerals" that you say soil microorganisms get from soil?"

I can rephrase is again.  What is the exact chemical composition of the ions that you say microorganisms decompose from soil to deliver to plants?  What are the atomic elements constituting the ionic molecules or ionic atoms?  As I suggested before, I agree with you that enhancing the health and size of a microorganism population in soil will enhance the growth of plants above that soil, because microorganism do decompose plant nutrients from more complex organic molecules contained in soil.  But, the chemical elements involved in the released ions are organic (N, P, K, S, Ca, Fe).  They are specifically not inorganic, insoluble "minerals", which are made into soluble plant nutrients (organic chemicals).

I will vehemently contest with you whether microorganisms decompose Silicon-Si or silicate minerals (e.g. SiO2-quartz sand), Aluminum-Al or aluminium phyllosilicate (clay), Thorium, Azurite, Bauxite, Cuprite, Dolomite, Gold, Radon (a gas), Uranium, or significant amounts of any of the hundreds of other inorganic minerals, and break off any organic plant nutrient ions from those minerals.  Microorganisms cannot perform atomic operations.  They cannot convert atoms of one element into atoms of other elements.  Atomic transformations only occur at very very high energy levels via nuclear reactions, not at soil temperatures via biochemical operations, but at plasma temperatures, like in the core of a star or inside the implosion of a supernova (again via nuclear operations, which microorganism cannot perform).

Please answer the direct question.  What "minerals" do you say soil microorganisms decompose into what ions, that they make available to plants?  The exact chemical composition, please?

Regards,

SKB


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: adkarve<mailto:adkarve at pn2.vsnl.net.in> 
  To: Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2007 5:55 AM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] John Cowan's comments


  Dear Sean,
   Agronomists in India have had to accept the view that plants take up mineral nutrients from the soil, even when these are not applied from outside. They call this phenomenon soil mining. Agriculture without using any manure or chemical fertilizers is practised in non-irrigated areas in peninsular India. The farmers who depend solely on rainfall, do not use any inputs apart from the seed and the labour of their own family members and of their own oxen. Applying inputs on which they have to spend money is a gamble, because if the rains were to fail, they lose everything. They have been doing this sort of farming for centuries. A study of the inputs and outputs of these farms clearly shows, that the plants must be mining the soil, because there are no inputs worth the name. The practice of using very small quantities of non-composted, high calorie organic matter as manure is now at least a decade old. Several thousand farmers follow this practice. A comparison of their inputs and outputs shows that the plants in their fields must also be mining the soil. An analysis of the soils from such farms always shows that the soils are deficient of N and P. And yet they get high yield, sometimes even higher than their neighbours who use chemical fertilizers. Confronted by such data, I came to the logical conclusion that the soil micro-organisms must be decomposing the soil minerals. Agronomists too had to cencede this point in the face of the data. But they oppose my recommendation of applying low quantities of non-composted, high calorie biomass as manure on the ground that it amounted to soil mining, and that it would eventually lead to depletion of fertility of the soil. Now you have entered the debate saying that the soil micro-organisms would decompose only the organic fraction of the soil and not the mineral fraction. So those who oppose my views can now be divided into two camps. One camp denies the soil micro-organisms the ability to decompose insoluble soil minerals into soluble ions. The other camp concedes, at least for the sake of argument, that soil micro-organisms do decompose the soil minerals, but rejects this way of farming because it amounts to soil mining. 
  Yours
  A.D.Karve
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Sean K. Barry<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com> 
    To: Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> ; adkarve<mailto:adkarve at pn2.vsnl.net.in> 
    Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 9:36 PM
    Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] John Cowan's comments


    Hi A.D.

    Specifically what are the "minerals" that you say soil microorganisms get from soil?

    I say that soil microorganisms decompose plant organic matter and soil microorganisms represent organic matter in soil themselves.  Plant growth requires most substantially, amounts of plant nutrients obtained from soil, including; nitrogen-N, phosporus-P, potassium-K, Calcium-Ca, Sulfur-S, Magnesium-Mg, and Iron-Fe.  Combined with carbon dioxide-CO2 from the air and water-H2O from the air and the soil, plants grow and require magnitudes more of these organic elements than they do of any other trace "minerals".

    I firmly believe that a healthy population of soil microorganisms is essential to decompose ORGANIC matter in soil to make the ionic forms of the plant nutrients available to plants growing above the soil.  This is in fact what the action of "composting" is, microorganisms decomposing organic matter.  The largest inorganic "mineral" content in soil is by far silica; sand is silicon dioxide-SiO2 and clay is aluminum silicate.  Plants do not need soil microorganisms to decompose inorganic minerals from rocks in order to help them grow.  Plants need soil microorganisms to decompose soil organic matter and make more ionic forms of plant nutrients (N, P, K, S, Ca, Fe) available to the plants.

    A.D., if you claim there are other more essential inorganic mineral content in soil required for plant growth, then I think you are wrong.  There is just not enough inorganic mineral content in plant matter to validate that claim.  When you claim that adding sugar to a field promotes the growth of soil organic matter, then I am inclined to agree, but the action of that increased population of soil microorganisms is to decompose organic nutrients from organic matter in soil, not inorganic minerals from rocks.  Do you not agree?  Can you not see this?  Can you not see that your suggestion for small caloric applications to agricultural fields rather than chemical fertilizers is still an possibly effective method, even if the microorganisms don't decompose rocks?

    If you cannot buy my analysis, then I suggest you try an experiment.  Cook some sand, clean it, sterilize it, whatever to wash it so it is completely free of any organic matter (living or dead) whatsoever.  Then put sugar and all the live soil microorganisms you want into it.  Put the same amount of sugar and soil microorganisms into regular soil.  Plant some same plants or seeds into both of them.  I would hypothesis, that the sweet sand will produce SMALLER growth than the sweet soil.  The difference being the soil contains ORGANIC MATTER.

    I do not accuse.  I debate.


    SKB

    ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: adkarve<mailto:adkarve at pn2.vsnl.net.in> 
      To: Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
      Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 9:18 AM
      Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] John Cowan's comments


      Dear Sean,
      I think that you have misunderstood me. In the mail that I wrote to Juergen, I did not say what you accuse me of saying. I had mentioned silica in one of my earlier messages. But that was just to show that the silica found in many green plant species must come from the soil, as none of our chemical fertilizers contain silica. A crop of wheat or rice removes 250 kg of silica every year from a hectare of soil. I use this example as an indirect proof that soil micro-organisms convert the normally insoluble soil minerals into their component ions. What I have been trying to say all the while is that plants can get all the mineral elements required for their metabolism from soil minerals through the activity of soil microbes. We can help this natural process by feeding non-composted high calorie organic material to the microbes.
      Yours
      A.D.Karve  
        ----- Original Message ----- 
        From: Sean K. Barry<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com> 
        To: Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> ; adkarve<mailto:adkarve at pn2.vsnl.net.in> 
        Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 12:57 PM
        Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] John Cowan's comments


        Hi A.D.

        Why can't it be that a well fed (by sugars in organic material) soil microbe population will make more ions of plant nutrients (elements N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, etc.) available for uptake by plants (through their roots)?  What makes you think that Silicon or any of the other elements found in soil minerals and as mere trace elements in plants are what microbes are decomposing off of mineral rocks and making available to plants?
        Plants which show increased biomass yield have far greater increases in the numbers of atoms of the plants nutrients (N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe), and molecules of CO2 and H2O, than they have in increases of trace elements.  Do you not think so?

        SKB
          ----- Original Message ----- 
          From: adkarve<mailto:adkarve at pn2.vsnl.net.in> 
          To: Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
          Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 7:41 PM
          Subject: [Terrapreta] John Cowan's comments


          Dear John,
          I am a hundred percent with you. Charcoal is a valuable fuel. A small quantity of charcoal added to the soil as an amendment would be acceptable, but making charcoal and burying it in the soil just as a means of carbon sequestration would not be acceptable. Growing forests is a better way of carbon sequestration. Charcoal is highly porous. It is my hunch that it not only offers extra surface for microbes to settle on, but also a place where they can survive in the dry season. I have also aired my view, that the microbes degraded soil minerals because they needed the mineral ions for their own metabolism. Plants learned the trick of feeding the microbes with organic matter, so that their numbers increased and they thus made more nutrients available to the plants. 
          Yours
          Dr.A.D.Karve, President,
          Appropriate Rural Technology Institute,
          Pune, India.
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