[Terrapreta] More on soil life

[Brian Hans]

Ive often wondered about CO2 production in the soil. 
   
  On one level... it seems like such a waste, letting the bugs get all of that good stuff (carbs, oils,....) just to leach the inorganics held within that good stuff back into the soil only to be used again, a short cycle compost pile in the soil. Yet as we all know, if we (Cow)eat that biomass and poop it all out in the same spot... the minerals still there and thus we get an economic use (food) with the same endgame as soil microflora doing the same thing (ATM CO2 and inorganics at the ready). The more cows eat the biomass and poop out the inorganics, the less soil bio has to do. Yet strangely enough, there is many benefits to the soil this cycle offers over fallow fields and much less CO2 is produced in the soil as a result.   
   
  Also, we know CO2 in the soil/water = weak acid. This can break down sequestered minerals in the rocks themselves, like granite, limestone, etc. Weak acids can also work to react with biomass to produce humic substances and other interesting chemistry within the soil structure itself. These long lived humic substances play an important roll in the friability and ion exchange of the soil itself. 
   
  I could go on and on but it seems like such a rich topic for study I wish more people would get into the dirt, with dirt. 
   
  On a hopeful note, equating GHG and GW with dirt might attract the attn that dirt needs. And this plays to the strengths of TP. So expect more people :)
   
  Brian
   
   
         
   
  Professor Young added: "It is these active organisms that are important because they are turning sugar back into carbon dioxide, which is released into the atmosphere. We were astonished at the wide variety of active bacteria that we discovered. Many of them had not been seen in plant roots before, and we have no idea how they may affect plant growth."
The role of mycorrhizal fungi is better known. They are particularly important in carbon cycling, because they pump the carbon compounds out of the root into a massive network of fine fungal filaments in the soil, where it becomes available to other microbes and also to larger soil organisms like worms, mites and insects.

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