Soil fungi increase security, awareness, and knowledge for those connected to them. Any soil management action that results in the breakage of these connections, such as tillage and fungicides, destroys the entire nerve system of the soil thus isolating plants and soil organisms from each other.
What are protozoa? Protozoa are microbes beneficial to soil health. They help to cycle nutrients such as nitrogen as well as attract earth worms. Find here instructions to make your own protozoa tea to inoculate the soil.
Often farmers treat the farm as a whole and that is completely wrong. Fields within a few meters from each other can have completely different characteristics, especially with regards to soil biology.
The ultimate goal is a healthy soil, with a fully functioning soil food web. One of the important steps in achieving this is ensuring the correct diet for the microbes which make up the full food web.
The unique and constant interaction between plant roots, bacteria and fungi creates a fantastic symbiosis. Farmers are able to facilitate or limit this interaction through the practices they implement.
The soil food web represents the diversity of life that lives in the soil. Earthworm counts can be used as an indicator of the diversity of life that is present in the soil.
The relationship between plant roots and mycorrhizae is often reduced to just the exchange of nutrients and water, but the relationship goes much deeper. Read this blog to find out about other benefits of this mutualistic relationship.
Arthropods play a significant role in the soil food web. Farmers should value the role they play, and ensure they implement practices which facilitate and encourage a healthy soil food web, including arthropods.
Charles Darwin, the father of earthworm science, once said: “Without the work of this humble creature, who knows nothing of the benefits he confers upon mankind, agriculture, as we know it, would be very difficult, if not wholly impossible”
Protists are a group of microorganisms that did not tick all the boxes to be called bacteria, fungi or nematodes. These microorganisms play a crucial role in the mineralisation process.