The Soil Food Web School’s mission is to empower individuals and organizations to regenerate the soils in their communities. The Soil Food Web Approach can dramatically accelerate soil regeneration projects by focussing on the soil biome. This can boost the productivity of farms, provide super-nutritious foods, protect and purify waterways, and reduce the effects of Climate Change. No background in farming or biology is required for our Foundation Courses. Classes are online & self-paced, and students are supported by highly-trained Soil Food Web School mentors.
Over the last four decades, Dr. Elaine Ingham has advanced our knowledge of the Soil Food Web. An internationally-recognized leader in soil microbiology, Dr. Ingham has collaborated with other scientists and with farmers around the world to further our understanding of how soil organisms work together and with plants. Dr. Ingham is an author of the USDA's Soil Biology Primer and a founder of the Soil Food Web School.
I put my selfmade Compost in a container and put 25 ltr rain water to it and mix it well, and than I blow 6 ours pressed air bubbles trough it and than mix it 1 - 4 wth pure rain water and give it to my allotment !🤠
Incredible to getting so good info and science for free.. i am so gratefull for you guys, very important to give more strength to agroecology movement and regeneration models for agriculture. Thanks!
Dr. Elaine, I gotta ask, why do you keep implying that anaerobic microbes are bad? They're just as important to a diverse soil food web as aerobic microbes. Plus only the first foot or two of the soil is aerobic, the rest is mostly anaerobic. If you look at practices like Korean Natural Farming or JADAM, many of the fertilizers are fermented by anaerobic microbes that help break down the nutrients in order to feed the plants. The same happens in nature, so I'm not sure why you'd try and say all these microbes are somehow bad or harmful, the most important thing is diversity.
That was a good explanation for my observings at our organic farm. Insects prefer weak unhealthy plants, even the Colorado Beetle attacks almost potato plants growing slowly and not good. Fantastic work by Dr Dykstra.
I think the idea of keeping plants or animals “clean” - i.e. free of other organisms, instead of making sure they are populated with healthy other organisms that crowd out the options for bad organisms. And the concept of monoculture. Those are at the root of most issues with pests
What a fantastic presentation!! I was curious about fungus gnats that I typically have problems with in my plant room overwintering. And I was also very curious about symbiotic relationships for example peonies depend on carpenter ants to liberate their flowers
Soil food web school? What kind of crap is this video? Ice cores prove this? Sorry but you are way outta your league if you teach this garbage. This is your religion not soil science.
After watching this, I supplemented my grow (cannabis) with some UVA lights and my BRIX, after 4 days has already jumped up from 6 to 9. I never had any insect problems but the fact that the plant was not able to produce certain amino acids got me curious about raising for increased secondary metabolites. Curious to see what the levels are after a few weeks and how it will change the end result.
Slugs are my nemesis and I've determined I have half the world's slugs in my garden because of the huge amount of mulch I use. The slimy critters eat 99% of any crop I direct sow, such as carrots. I don't think the tiny seedlings have had the time to develop natural immunity to the slugs, who see them as filet mignon of the plant world. I'm now working at eliminating most of the early season mulch and other slug hiding spots in my garden. I've found that an after dark application of 10% household ammonia solution does a real number on the slugs without damaging the plants. It also kills every other bug it hits. like tent caterpillars. Just be careful not to spray in bright sunshine or you'll likely damage your plants. A half inch layer of sifted compost slao makes it difficult for them to crawl on becasue it sticks to their body and prevents them laying down a slime trail which is how they move. BTW, recent soil tests show my garden has 14% organic matter.
There are definitely many creatures that don't particularly care of the plant in front of them is super healthy, they'll eat it anyway. Like us. Your experience was like mine when veggie farming. Quite healthy (appearing, storing, and tasting) vegetables but provide slugs and snails with habitat reasonably close by and they'll have a feast. I did what you are doing now and it helped a lot. I kept at least a meter wide clean (wood chipped) pathway around the perimeter before perennial vegetation and mulched with compost. Kept slugs and snail numbers to a dull roar or absent. Even with 16% soil organic matter according to one test, it was likely that a nutrient could have been out of proportion. Never had time to follow up on it though. Would have been very interesting to see some sap tests on those veggies... Good luck getting the upper hand!
Slug is a different matter than insects, but I observed that they do favor weak plants like insects, especially plants with thin leaves like in the case of excess fertilization. However, many gardens have slugs from being an isolated patch of greenery in the middle of nothing. If your garden is raised beds surrounded by gravel or a very shortly cut lawn, no trees, no hedges, no flower beds, then there's nothing for slugs to eat other than your veggies in the raised beds, no shelter for slug predators like toads, birds and hedgehogs. One "trick" that veggie farmers in France use against slugs is to sow their small seeds like carrots, turnips or radishes on sifted mature compost, like a 10 cm layer on top of the ground. No mulch. Slugs don't like crawling on mature compost for some reason. If it still does not work, you may have to resort to ducks, the ones used for that are usually indian runner ducks, because they don't fly. Like chickens, they need an enclosure though, otherwise after eating the slugs they eat your leaf veggies.
@@nicolasbertin8552 No raised beds, lots of lawn and vegetation around... too much, especially straw mulch... that's where they hang out during the day. Need to eliminate some hiding spots. Sowing into sifted mature compost is useful, but it must be kept moist for germination, and the slugs like that. I mentioned a similar thought in my comment. They can't crawl on the dry compost because it sticks to their body and they can't lay down a slime trail, so there they sit until the moning sun comes up... et voila - escargots (for the birds) LOL
I was really inspired until he got to the bit about light and greenhouses. I live in Ireland where sunshine is rare and greenhouses are a must for alot of crops.. I guess my brix goals are doomed!
This is one of the greatest most eye opening presentations on plants I have ever come across. Please tell me you will present the other parts you mentioned at the beginning of the video.
The title of this video is a classic case of loaded question. Before you ask _"why insects avoid healthy plants"_ you should first establish that this is the case. Not only it is an over generalization, but in fact what we see in many cases is the exact opposite of that. For example, many insects will seek the most healthy plants and their healthiest fruit or tissue they can find in which to lay their eggs. This is not only evolutionary logic, but also evidence that is abundantly corroborated.
Agree with this, for example aphids tends to feed on new leaves and shoots because they are tender and they can pierce the plants easier. I have some mango trees that were all ravaged by mango leaf cutting beetles this year. These beetles lays eggs on new leaves then cut off the healthy young leaves for their larvae feed on. And his example of fruit flies, they will lay eggs on healthy fruits then when their larvae hatches at eats the fruit it causes them to spoil. Some species will lay eggs on the fruits well before the fruit is ripe. So I have a lot of doubt on this presentation.
What invaluable information I learned today thank you Dr. Dykstra and Dr. Elaine. I can now evaluate the effectiveness of my soil amendments in the lens of sugar levels (brix measured levels)
Doubt: since harvest is the time plants are almost dead / dead , does that count as unhealthy plant? Since bugs attack unhealthy plants and harvest lost?
