Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

I'm a gardening and landscaping enjoyer, but I am constantly confused about the bordering magical thinking surrounding dirt, among other aspects of growing things.

If you look at hydroponics/aeroponics, plants basically need water, light, and fertilizer (N (nitrogen) P (phosphorous) K (potassium), and a few trace minerals). It can be the most synthetic process you've ever seen, and the plants will grow amazingly well.

The other elements regarding soil health, etc, would be much better framed in another way, rather than as directly necessary for plant health. The benefits of maintaining a nice living soil is that it makes the environment self-sustaining. You could just dump synthetic fertilizer on the plant, with some soil additives to help retain the right amount of drainage/retention, and it would do completely fine. But without constant optimal inputs, the plants would die.

If you cultivate a nice soil, such that the plants own/surrounding detritus can be broken down effectively, such that the nutrients in the natural processes can be broken down and made available to the plant, and the otherwise nonoptimal soil texture characteristics could be brought to some positive characteristics by those same processes, then you can theoretically arrive at a point that requires very few additional inputs.

sure, we can make them grow well in a lab. but a natural system is so much simpler and elegant

Plants absorb nitrogen and CO2 from the air and store it in their roots; plants fertilize soil.

If you only grow plants with externally-sourced nutrients, that is neither sustainable nor permaculture.

Though it may be more efficient to grow without soil; soil depletion isn't prevented by production processes that do not generate topsoil.

JADAM is a system developed by a chemicals engineer given what is observed to work in JNF/KNF. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38527264

Where do soil amendments come from, and what would deplete those stocks (with consideration for soil depletion)?

(Also, there are extremely efficient ammonia/nitrogen fertilizer generators, but still then the algae due to runoff problem. FWIU we should we asks ng farmers to Please produce granulated fertilizer instead of liquid.)

The new biofuel subsidies require no-till farming practices; which other countries are further along at implementing (in or to prevent or reverse soil depletion).

Tilling turns topsoil to dirt due to loss of moisture, oxidation, and solar radiation.

Maybe it’s because I started with hydroponics. I don’t get the fascination with soil or animosity about hydroponics being unnatural. People do vastly underestimate what it takes to create a good soil mixture, though. In the end, you’re suspending nutrients in a substrate for the plants to uptake regardless of how you go about providing them.

I am terraforming my limestone rocky terrain using leaves.

I believe they have trace minerals and the grub larve eat the oak leaves and poop amazing soil.

I now have 6" of black soil with earthworms!

This is in dry central Texas. Moisture helps microbial/fungal life. Leaves retain moisture.

Another key ingredient is pressure/compaction of leaves.

I have results on my YouTube channel: theRainHarvester

and easier and time tested and resilient

I think what is forgotten is the organisms other than plants. Hydroponics is amazing for plants but not sure if you can sustain a wineyard in that fashion for long without having some kind of organism starting to cause issues. A well balanced soil doesn't only support the plants but also provides a healthy microbiome. Now, with the use of pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and tilling it's not less synthetic process than hydrophonics. Soil degradation in presence of these are so well documented and well understood that it's crazy we keep doing it.

hydroponics raised vegetables taste like bland slop. if you're an actual food enjoyer anyone can easily notice this

Hydroponics is great at growing plants that are great at growing in hydroponics. Generally that is short-lived annuals.

tilling with anything more than human power should be banned!

Uh, pretty much every farmer I ever met is going to disagree.

Farming is hard, unpredictable (prone to disasters/famine/plagues), and prone to all sorts of problems with soil, weather, etc.

The reason modern fertilizer and pesticides are used so widely is they make that fundamentally extremely difficult process easier and more predictable.

There are also enzymes and secondary metabolites relevant to plant health associated with microbiome and ecological chains in healthy soil that go beyond the regenerative macronutrient cycles. If you try to grow edible fruits you'll notice flavor loss as a result of hydroponic / synthetic methods.

The vast majority of plants do not absorb nitrogen from the air. Legumes are the well-known exception.

Most plants do not absorb atmospheric nitrogen, but need external nitride fertilizer to grow! That causes serious ground water polution!

> The new biofuel subsidies require no-till farming practices

This actually depletes soil of nitrogen!

I think there’s a perception that hydroponic systems are less resilient as well as an erroneous belief that they are more complex than soil (their supply chains might be, but the systems themselves are not).

It isn't legumes that absorb nitrogen from air. It is bacteria that lives on their roots.

Hydroponics eastable plant parts taste like crap, a very pale shadow of earth-grown ones.

Maybe there is some semi-magical way how to grow veggies in hydroponics well, but nobody doing mass produce figured that out so results are subpar on many aspects.

You need to spend more money on adding “optional” nutrients that would otherwise be produced by organic processes in a living soil. These nutrients are what add to flavor but don’t necessarily help with the growing process.

The distinction isn’t hydroponics vs soil - it’s organic vs inorganic farming. Non organic soil faces the same issues. Aquaponics (I.e organic hydroponics using fish and other aquatic organisms) also yield flavorful crops.

I checked out your video collection. You have some very interesting stuff and I think I may be able learn a few things.

I also live in Texas, north Texas, on a dry limestone outcrop with soil depths averaging about 6" but highly variable due to the sloping nature of the property. My best, most fertile soils are underneath the hackberry/cedar elm/live oak stands on the property where leaves are allowed to accumulate and decompose. In the cleared area, it was farmed for hay, beans, corn, etc before we bought the place, the soil is pretty light, tends to dry out quickly and can be difficult to dig if it hasn't rained in a while. Under the trees it is dark and richly connected and you can dig with your fingers to the rock ledge underneath. It's some good shit.

We grow all our garden stuff in troughs and rings since growing in the soil requires too much water due to the oven effect in the summer where the near surface rock heats up and radiates all night drying the soil making it necessary to water daily. I'm on a private water well and not terribly enthusiastic about watering anything every day since it seems like a waste to plant things that won't grow without a lot of babysitting.

I also collect rainwater from my greenhouse roof and use a solar/battery setup to drive a water pump inside one of the tanks which is just a standard plastic rotomolded tank. The other tank I have is a stainless steel tank that I got for a song since it leaked like a sieve due to design issues. I can testify that flex-seal tape doesn't work. I sealed all the joints since all were leaking and every one of them developed leaks past the tape. The only notable difference that the flex-seal tape made was in slowing the leak enough that fine particulates began to accumulate in the leaky spots and that has allowed some of the largest leaks to become trickles so that the tank will now hold water. I believe that it will eventually seal itself as all the crud tries to escape the tank and ends up forming a nice organic seal. Big win for me. I just need to put a pump on it now and extend the line to my orchard at my hugelkulture berm.

You have a bit of cedar there. We use cedar mulch to control weed growth. It is an effective weed inhibitor where we have laid it down. I have tested cypress, cedar, and hardwood mixes and cedar definitely controls everything better. We have our annual weeding process set so that we take a few hours in the fall and spring to pull about 95% of things we don't want and then over the growing season we just spend a little time yanking new growth if it happens.

You can and also should incorporate composted grass clippings (weed-free or cut from an area with native grasses and flowers). This will help build rich soil too. Avoid anything from a place that has an invasive plant problem. I am eradicating several non-natives from my place as I slowly drag it back to a native plant property. I have an area of the garden that is set aside as a pollinator attractor and it is full of natives that keep it alive with bees and insects from spring until the first good freeze. It's really rewarding to step out and hear the activity as you stand under the blackberry arches that are loaded with berries and blossoms waiting for the bugs.

I'm gonna check out some of your work, especially the Arduino controlled pump setup inside your greenhouse, since I would love to monitor my own usage from the tank.

I am pretty sure he was referring to lab-grown, but as to its accuracy; I cannot comment.

That, and most of the other nutrients which was needed to grow the vegies ( like phosphates and potassium) are flushed into the toilet. There will be no long term permaculture without cycling those back at some point. Otherwise, organic or not, this will remains an wasteful open loop.

The reason chemical fertilizers work is because they provide minerals that a plant might normally trade sugars to fungi to get. So those sugars stay in the plant making larger fruits, nuts, or legumes.

But the problem is you also get water and early/late season sugars exchanged between plants (Simard et al).

So within a generation the soil structure has collapsed, you’re at the whim of every microdrought, and you’re dealing with the Red Queen problem. But like drugs, at first it feels amazing.

> dirt

Dirt isn’t much better than hydroponics. Soil is. Conventional farming has been described by some as “hydroponics in dirt”. That’s why it’s so fertilizer dependent, just like hydro.

There are a few places in the world where there is insufficient phosphorous in the native rock to grow plants without fertilizer. But everywhere else, healthy soil fungi could mine it out of the sand in the soils. If they were left to grow instead of burned to death with herbicides and fertilizers.

I only succeeded with growing African violets when I also had fish. When the violets started looking droopy or hadn’t flowered in a while I put a cup of fish tank water in the pot and foomp! Full head of flowers within about three weeks.

The tilapia/aquaponics people have a better system.

Next door neighbor to this: I read someone who had a theory that dwarfed plants were also part of the nutrient and flavor reductions in modern grocery fare.

The model they presented was that the plant stores nutrients all year, and then when it fruits it dumps those nutrients into the fruit. With dwarfism we’ve reduced the plant size and kept the fruit size with the theory that more photosynthesis goes into the fruit. But there’s also a smaller reservoir for everything else that goes into the fruit.

great post. I posted in this thread above about using a Lomi to convert our organic waste into organic fertilizer (along with a worm farm), a and cultivating nitrogin fixing bacteria with our outdoor fish pond and a flood and drain system. Soil is great to grow in, if you treat it well.

I will say that my only problem with Simard is that she anthropomorphizes the fungi and the behaviors she documented could just as easily be explained by osmotic pressure. Chemicals in a solution of water have “fairness” built into them. The broker doesn’t need to have a strategy for exchange, just siphon off a finder’s fee for making the introductions. The magic is low friction channels that can move solutions over a long (for a single celled organism) distance. That’s magic enough for any kingdom of life.

Sugary sap? Water will enter and sugars flow out. High nitrogen content? Same same.

If you’re not on the bandwagon yet, you should try incorporating some mushroom blocks to speed up the decomposition! It’ll also help to take the moisture retention you’re getting up an additional notch.

We’ve got a local grow block recycling program through the Central Texas Mycological Society. For your use case, all you’d need to do is bury the blocks in leaf litter with one long edge barely poking up above the surface. A combo of blue and pink oyster would probably serve you well, depending on the season.

There are also organisms such as slugs, grubs, beetles, moths etc. which can mess with growth. I can basically not grow any sunflower at all without it getting destroyed by beetles, zucchinis by vine borer larvae, other things by slugs, etc. Makes it hard to garden without getting resentful and harboring feelings of revenge. Next thing you know you're dropping all sorts of evil chemicals on the plants. :-D

lol yes, farming is hard as fuck. i'm comparing to growing food in high tech ways outside of soil

I think that's why it's good to rotate beans or plant clover cover crop.

Three Sisters: Corn, Beans, Squash: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture)

Companion planting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_planting

Nitrogen fixation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_fixation

You ought to visit Iceland. Knowing that the entire island went from 30-40% woodland to being basically 100% deforested in a span of 100 years (the first 100 years following the Vikings arrival), and with the bare ground being fields of barren volcanic rock, to see all the sheep grazing pasture that exists today, gives you great appreciation for the amount of terraforming that was required to get even 1% of the land into that state.

That is true but legumes actively foster those bacteria on their roots and without the legumes most of that bacteria dies. Its a symbiotic relationship.

Why do you believe that no-till farming practices deplete soil of nitrogen more than tilling?

A plausible hypothesis: tilling destroys the bacteria that get nitrogen to plant roots.

Isn't runoff erision the primary preventable source of nitrogen depletion?

FWIU residue mulch initially absorbs atmospheric nitrogen instead of the soil absorbing it, but that residue and its additional nitrogen eventually decays into the soil.

I have heard that it takes something like five years to successfully completely transform acreage with no-till; and then it's relatively soft and easily plantable and not impacted, so it absorbs and holds water.

No-till farmers are not lacking soil samples.

What would be a good test of total change in soil nitrogen content (and runoff) given no-till and legacy farming practices?

With pressure-injection seeders and laser weeders, how many fewer chemicals are necessary for pro farming?

Your comment makes me think of those people who say "plants need light and water". It's expanded, sure: "plants need light, water and NPK" ... but no, that's also extremely naive. The point is, until very recently, western science knew almost nothing about botanical systems. We are only reaching the level of many traditional societies now. (If you are skeptical, check any horticultural reference for the difference in tree height observed in nature vs. "in cultivation"... often 50% height!) The reality is actually obvious: plants actually need an entire ecosystem.

Frankly, western botany used to sustain the outdated view that planting a tree in a field with full sun was "the best way" because it was "not competing".

It now turns out plants grow better with diverse friends and an ecosystem.

Aspects of this include but are not limited to insect life, fungal networks, resource exchange, and subsoil life such as earthworms as well as soil protection, wind protection, sun protection (most many recent seedlings cannot withstand full sun and deeply appreciate increased humidity).

Just adding NPK doesn't bring in insects, doesn't bring in soil protection, doesn't bring in fungi. In fact, it may very well poison these elements within an emergent ecosystem.

> difference in tree height observed in nature vs. "in cultivation"... often 50% height!

Trees in nature are usually in forests, where they grow tall in competition for light. Terra in cultivation tend to be grown surrounded by grass, growing wider and shorter to collect sunshine.

Exactly that sort of false reductionism is missing the point.

While reduced sunlight can have a role in early stage height differences, this occurs both in cultivation and in nature and therefore is not a sole causative factor.

The sort of factors being indicated that were previously ignored by western horticulture are interaction based. Cultivated trees often face simplified fungal communities, limiting nutrient diversity compared to natural forests’ complex networks. Furthermore, natural forests exhibit interconnected fungal systems that facilitate nutrient redistribution between trees and improved community pathogen resistance.

The average person is unaware or thinks this is fantasy. They are ignorant. Don't be ignorant.

The difference is that in soil you have microbes and fungus which seek out and break down inorganic nutrients then exchange them with plants for sugar. Plant's access to nutrients is mediated by this underground ecosystem.

In hydroponics YOU provide the work to gather and process all the nutrients and provide them to the plant roots in an optimal form. In nature, that work is done by the soil ecosystem.

In the end, the plant does not seem to really care. As long as it has the right molecules available, it's happy. Possibly moreso since it doesn't need to sacrifice any of its sugars.

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43764441 :

> "Discovery of nitrogen-fixing corn variety could reduce need for added fertilizer" (2018) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17721741

It’s not ignorant to point out the main reason that trees in cultivation are shorter, which is that there is no need for them to grow tall. They’re also a lot greater in trunk diameter, fwiw.

> main reason

{{citation-needed}} # good luck with that

Have you never grown a plant? They grow towards the light. If there’s not enough light, they grow tall and leggy. This isn’t revolutionary.

對牛彈琴