Jimmy Emmons’ ranch in Oklahoma burned severely in 2018. He’d been doing regenerative and rotational practices for several years prior. His land bounced back very well
If you're coming off of a chemical fertilizer system and want to transition to BEAM, is it optimal to cut chemical fertilizer cold turkey or do you have to wean the lands off of fertilizers slowly over a few years? Not sure if it's possible to contact Dr. Johnson directly or someone familiar with this method to find out how to implement this properly?
We are learning to use epiflurescence microscopy to and soon we hope to learn basic DNA sequencing with online course with matt powers he is very good, very exciting project
I wonder what would happen if you harvest seeds and replant where they were harvested? The combination of the epigenetics captured in harvested seed with enhanced soil biology might be of value. .
We are approaching 500 bioreactors done since last October we have modified the design a little bit after the 100 first one, we need to replenish one third of the reactor every month now we refill it with kelp the biologic dynamic seem to increase after adding kelp mix first we added 40 lb of fresh kelp but rapidly switch to 20 lb.reactors eat like babies, we are planning to make 1000 reactors we add biochar as well and we use anecic worms not compost worms as they work vertically, huge difference we add basalt as well as manure we are reducing row manure now, by June we will focus on liquid cow manure, since May we work outside and letting reactors outside for summer exposed to elements, we learn everyday we always start with em1 and we water with worm casting tea
Regarding the required or desired use of compost in soil, There is an interesting competing theory of plant diversity described in a number of YT videos primarily by Dr Christine Jones that suggests that human practice of planting crops in monocultural plots kills soil. Actually, to some degree humans have known this to be fact and so often practice crop rotations. But, this new theory suggests even crop rotation is wrong because it's still perpetuating the practice of monocultural planting which periodically robs the soil of specific nutrients and microbes. Better practice is to plant diverse plants immediately next to each other, the greater in number and diversity the better. This might cause problems in harvesting, but the result seems to be a jungle of highly healthy plants that share the benefits of diversely produced microbes that synergistically help each other even when not produced by the plant itself. Additionally and not necessarily related to the above, There have been a number of demos and experiments, one described by a British gardener (I've forgotten his name and channel) in a YT video that has been running 14 years where he determined that composting has a major impact on crop yields the first 3 seasons but if there is excellent soil management compost has no noticeable benefit beyond that... His experimental plots all were producing maximum and same yields after the 3rd year. This suggests that everyone can plan ahead similarly... Even if starting from less than optimal soil, it may be important to add compost amendments for the first 3 years and the amount probably depends on the quality of the original soil but by the 4th year maxiimum yield crops can be gown without compost or fertilizer.
'This might cause problems in harvesting' ding ding ding! Farmers have known for centuries that moncropping isn't ideal (all due respect to the Doctor and her brilliant insight - sarcasm). But nobody has figured out how to economically harvest any other way - if the Doctor designs a cheap and effective method for harvesting multiple crops at once, then she'd be doing something worthwhile - otherwise she's simply blowing hot air stating the obvious.
Gabe Brown has shown how to do it with multiple species. Obviously we still have a lot of work in getting the education and what goes with what in a given context, as he describes it. For example development of pasture land, a lot of experience is out there. I just saw a few videos and even in Chihuahua desert they are figuring it out. I was wondering if they have figured it out for market gardening. What would Richard Perkins say, pretty smart and experienced guy. I didn't think hot air for Dr Jones. Instead i was thinking of how we educate young people. So your concerns are important, bu progesss... @ArthurDentZaphodBeeb
The more "browns" ie dead matter that is in the original materials, the more compost you'll end up with. But, to break down the original matter, you need enough "greens" which are recently if not still living material that provides the fuel for the microbes to break down both greens and browns, and that is the amount your pile will shrink.
@@tonysu8860 This is only true up to an initial C:N ratio of about 30:1. Beyond this if you let the material fully compost you'll end up with a lower percentage of the starting material. In order to get down to the stable ~12:1 C:N ratio of finished compost more of the initial material has to be respired off in order to reach this concentration if you start the process with excessive browns.
@@camilovallejos9462 do you have any advice for doing this composting with cow manure? Also have access to cereal straw and ponderosa pine chips. Know where I can find out what ratios and how to put them into a reactor?
@@Trapezoidal do you have any advice for doing this composting with cow manure? Also have access to cereal straw and ponderosa pine chips. Know where I can find out what ratios and how to put them into a reactor?
Is the content in this video about F:B ratios misinterpreted? I'm looking at numerous slides in this video which describe the between Fungi and Bacteria but a ratio is only a comparison between two things... I don't think that a ratio of anythings says anything about the volume and yet I keep hearing comment about how the ratios are supposed to illustrate growth and increased biomass.
A comment on the Johnson-Su bioreactor design. IMO it's insufficient and produces relatively poor quality compost in relation to the time required. First, regarding quality... It's important to know what the objective is, which is to produce completely composted material that supports microbial activity, not partial results. Partial decomposition means untapped capacity and plant growing resources which are locked in an unusable state for your crops. Note also that unlike proper hot composting which breaks down practically everything that's less than about 2" in diameter(tree branches, small stumps), less efficient design results depend heavily on feeding the pile material that's high in surface area (like leaves) and not fibrous (like palm fronds, corn stalks) and not bulky (low surface area relative to mass) A properly executed hot compost pile requires pile turning to ensure continuous high temperatures that approach boiling water at the core of the pile that will break down even branches and wood blocks up to a couple inches in diameter. The pile turning is continuous (about once per week) over 90 days to ensure for most of the time the pile maintains high temperatures until there is no more material to decompose. Only in the last couple weeks or so, the thermophilic bacteria and fungi die off as the temperature lowers and is replaced by bacteria and fungi that thrive at ambient temperatures. The result is a jet black material teeming with beneficial bacteria ready for crops and will likely already also be populated by all the insect and animal life (like worms) that are attracted to good soil. I do understand the desire to avoid the heavy manual labor associated with hot composting (Turning a wet pile at least a cubic yard 12x over 90 days is hard work unless you use power tools). But there is no known substitute that produces the same result and as quickly. The Johnson-Su bioreactor looks to me like a cold compost pile experiment that didn't produce desired results so worms were thrown in, and then becomes a product mainly of worm composting. If that's the real functionality of the Johnson-Su bioreactor, then there is no need to waste an entire year, the worms can be added immediately after the single thermophilic reaction dies down below 90 degrees F which should be about 10 days or so after the pile was begun. How fast results are produced depends entirely on the number of worms, but I would estimate whatever results the Johnson-Su bioreactor might produce in a year could probably be produced in less than 6 mths by adding the worms promptly as soon as possible.
Johnson-Su isn't a compost in the conventional sense of the word. It's an inoculant composed mostly of fungal spores and encysted bacteria along with other SFW organisms and based upon not only total exhaustion of the food material in the pile, but also upon the proper succession of organisms (largely consisting of fungal dominance), and emergent microbial ecosystem behaviors (phyla connectivity, etc.). You don't get this same effect from doing traditional Berkeley-style hot composting. Johnson himself admits that his compost is bereft of nutrients compared to other composts, and yet it still ends up with plants which out perform other composts because of the biological component. You will not get the same performance out of 2kg/ha of injected Berkeley compost as you do with the J-S material. As his analysis of his compost shows, even at 6 months of processing the compost is incomplete compared to its state at 12 months, ie. at 6mos it is less diverse and less 'even'. The J-S process already adds worms ASAP; typically in something less than a week since it doesn't tend to heat up above 130*F for more than about 3 days. As soon as it's about 80*F worms are added. The reactor without any worms will still make the same quality of compost, but it takes twice as long. This is the same as if you make the compost out of 100% wood chips compared to other materials - it takes twice as long. If you have to have a high throughput of composted material, or if you need to apply compost as a source of nutrients and carbon to your soils and crops then hot-composting is a great system (though other cold-composting like the SPIC system may be better). The J-S isn't really meant to handle 100% of all compostable materials generally speaking, exceptions being in cases of high-salinity manures, etc. Its purpose is as an inoculant to compliment other integrated farming practices and systems, not as a source of nutrients.
@@Trapezoidal do you know anything about at what point we do need to worry about replacing the macronutrients we remove from the soil at harvest? I get that it makes the abundance of nutrients already in the soil bioavailable to the plants, but if we harvest enough times without putting the nutrients back we will run out of potassium and phosphorus eventually right? I guess the microbes can figure out the nitrogen for us if we let them. Curious how you would deal with composting tons of cow manure from what's currently a cow and calf operation.
@@gekkobear1650 In a lot of soils (ones with clay), with proper biology+return of biomass to promote nutrient cycling you'll never run out of potassium. Many soils have tens of thousands of pounds of potassium in them per acre just within the O/A horizon. Phosphorous can be more challenging, but if you look at the total minerals contained in bulk soil (unextractable by typical agricultural soil tests) there is often tremendous amounts of locked up P. More specifically, if you apply P fertilizer you often only have access to about 10% of that per year - most of it locks up immediately to be extracted later. So in a rough way many farm soils may have centuries of locked up P just from the fertilizers that have been applied. In the most general sense what you're shooting for is growing things like cover crops to return large amounts of carbon to the soils to promote the biological cycling. The living plants pump sugars into the soils to feed the microbes, and then the dead biomass of the plants provides further carbon and nitrogen to fuel further amounts of microbial activity. David Johnson and many folks who have followed up on his research find that it's this return of biomass to the soils which is most crucial - the inoculant just being there to get things started in a good way. Basically you want to return 60% or more of the biomass produced over a year to the soil to feed it. Folks like Gabe Brown have figured out some good systems to make this happen. Integrating livestock into the mix helps recoup costs associated with planting the covers, and also can help terminate them and integrate the biomass back into the soil. For dealing with large amounts of cow manure I would really consider looking into the SPIC composting method out of Australia. It's basically an inoculated anaerobic composting method similar to making silage. You can make the inoculant in your kitchen too since it's just lactic acid bacteria which makes the whole thing very convenient. No need to turn piles which is an advantage over aerobic wind-row composting. I've seen some reports where the SPIC compost has had really good growth promotion since there's a lot less biomass lost in the composting process which leaves more carbon for the soil microbes to in turn promote plant growth. A very interesting option especially if you're re-applying the composted manure to your own fields. There are also some folks who've made large feed-through JS composting setups to process large volumes of manures. Seems like a neat option as well. Folks are always looking to buy finished JS compost, and indeed if you have a market for finished compost it could be a very good option for at least some of your manure. As the compost comes out with less salts than traditional aerobic manure composting it's a good option for home gardeners, etc. The Johnson-Su composting group on Facebook has a lot of info and examples of people's setups. For a good example of an aerobic composting method to use, the Lubkes "controlled microbial composting" is a really good system. It's an aerobic system that has less turning than traditional windrow systems. It could be a happy medium if you wanted to sell some good quality finished compost but also wanted to apply much of it back to your own fields.
Sigh, you've completely misunderstood what the J-S method is trying to accomplish - it's to generate a fungally-dominant aerobic compost that is used to make compost extracts/teas. They are then applied to innoculate seeds and soil. Conventional hot-composted material is bacterial-dominant. Most degraded soils are already bacterial-dominant, so adding hot-composted material doesn't help restore the bacterial-fungi balance needed for healthy/productive soil biology. The J-S method is dead simple - just need to maintain constant moisture and add worms for vermicomposting. The no-turn method allows for fungal spores to develop (every time you turn a hot-composted pile you destroy much of the fungal life, hence why no-turn compost is so desireable).
Great presentation but I have trouble understanding why the sequestration of an essential trace element in the atmosphere is a good thing. We know plant growth is inhibited by the low availability of this element which is why horticultural growers routinely inject it into their greenhouses raising the levels to those the planet used to enjoy within the atmosphere many eons ago. Surely sequestering more into the soil will further reduce plant growth, particularly in the most marginal areas of the planet and I can’t see this being welcomed by the peoples indigenous to those areas, not many people enjoy starving. Its all dreadfully confusing.
My understanding is... Carbon as part of CO2 in the atmosphere is a major factor in trapping heat within the earth's atmosphere which causes extreme weather and general warming of the planet which is causing the large reservoirs of ice to evaporate and increase the amount of water everywhere in our environment, causing sea levels to rise and more moisture in the air which provides the energy for extreme weather events. Carbon sequestration is trapping carbon in a place where it's not causing major changes to the environment. One place is in soil. Others talk about sequestration in living plant life, others talk about in the materials we use to build things, like in concrete. The idea is that if carbon can be removed from our atmosphere, then the heat that shines on earth and produced by burning things wouldn't be trapped in our atmosphere and would escape into space. Additionally, carbon in the soil doesn't inhibit plant growth. Water is one of the most necessary substances necessary for life, and carbon in the soil enhances water retention, making the water available for longer times for roots to tap into the moisture. Water in the soil is also essential for the microbial growth described in this video, when the ground lacks carbon like the Sahara desert, then microbes and plant life find that environment difficult.
Increased CO2 levels has proportional effects on the relative abundance of all molecules in primary producers relative to the molecule's C:N mass ratio. This can be seen in the abundance of vitamins in a plant, for instance. Vitamin E which has no nitrogen in it will be enhanced, but the other vitamins B5, B6, B2, B1, B9 in order of increasing fraction of the weight of nitrogen are reduced proportionally. This is also seen in protein abundance. Increasing CO2 leads to decreasing levels of protein (a nitrogen-bearing substance). You may have an increase in biomass, but this increase is in the form of carbohydrates and fats and not protein. So you could have higher crop yields but they would be less nutritious and more likely lead to obesity and other such problems. Human civilization has only been able to arise within a very narrow and globally predictable climatic window. Changing the parameters of this good deal we've been granted could result in instabilities which we, as a civilization, may not be able to weather...
Since Bill Gates is the largest private landowner in the country, surprised the Gates Foundation isn't strongly supportive. Gates is known for deep-dives into the science behind his philanthropy, so it makes me wonder what he sees (or doesn't see) that keeps him from funding Johnson's research.
It's not as profitable as the intellectual capital of seed genetic engineering and chemical formulations. Look up what he's doing around the world. He's a just leaning in to the old system.
Although I do believe in the idea that microbial diversity can lead to healthier animal and plant lives including humans, the claims in this video regarding such things as an improved immune system is probably an excessive claim. Based on microbiologists' own admissions that the taxonomy of microbes has hardly been touched, it's unlikely that any causative studies exist... You'd have to study, classify, and identify data before you can perform informed studies. My guess is that the existing state of knowledge is likely based on subjective correlations which can only suggest a possible theory and nothing substantial. If anyone knows differently, please post. I don't believe in a science of conjecture, I believe in the practice of scientific theory.
Incredible results from a prolific body of work!
Jimmy Emmons’ ranch in Oklahoma burned severely in 2018. He’d been doing regenerative and rotational practices for several years prior. His land bounced back very well
If you're coming off of a chemical fertilizer system and want to transition to BEAM, is it optimal to cut chemical fertilizer cold turkey or do you have to wean the lands off of fertilizers slowly over a few years? Not sure if it's possible to contact Dr. Johnson directly or someone familiar with this method to find out how to implement this properly?
85% cut worked for corn without any significant loss of yield even the first year
We are learning to use epiflurescence microscopy to and soon we hope to learn basic DNA sequencing with online course with matt powers he is very good, very exciting project
I wonder what would happen if you harvest seeds and replant where they were harvested? The combination of the epigenetics captured in harvested seed with enhanced soil biology might be of value. .
We are approaching 500 bioreactors done since last October we have modified the design a little bit after the 100 first one, we need to replenish one third of the reactor every month now we refill it with kelp the biologic dynamic seem to increase after adding kelp mix first we added 40 lb of fresh kelp but rapidly switch to 20 lb.reactors eat like babies, we are planning to make 1000 reactors we add biochar as well and we use anecic worms not compost worms as they work vertically, huge difference we add basalt as well as manure we are reducing row manure now, by June we will focus on liquid cow manure, since May we work outside and letting reactors outside for summer exposed to elements, we learn everyday we always start with em1 and we water with worm casting tea
Wonderful presentation thank u
thank you!!
Has anyone fertigated the extract?
Regarding the required or desired use of compost in soil,
There is an interesting competing theory of plant diversity described in a number of YT videos primarily by Dr Christine Jones that suggests that human practice of planting crops in monocultural plots kills soil. Actually, to some degree humans have known this to be fact and so often practice crop rotations. But, this new theory suggests even crop rotation is wrong because it's still perpetuating the practice of monocultural planting which periodically robs the soil of specific nutrients and microbes.
Better practice is to plant diverse plants immediately next to each other, the greater in number and diversity the better. This might cause problems in harvesting, but the result seems to be a jungle of highly healthy plants that share the benefits of diversely produced microbes that synergistically help each other even when not produced by the plant itself.
Additionally and not necessarily related to the above,
There have been a number of demos and experiments, one described by a British gardener (I've forgotten his name and channel) in a YT video that has been running 14 years where he determined that composting has a major impact on crop yields the first 3 seasons but if there is excellent soil management compost has no noticeable benefit beyond that... His experimental plots all were producing maximum and same yields after the 3rd year. This suggests that everyone can plan ahead similarly... Even if starting from less than optimal soil, it may be important to add compost amendments for the first 3 years and the amount probably depends on the quality of the original soil but by the 4th year maxiimum yield crops can be gown without compost or fertilizer.
'This might cause problems in harvesting' ding ding ding! Farmers have known for centuries that moncropping isn't ideal (all due respect to the Doctor and her brilliant insight - sarcasm). But nobody has figured out how to economically harvest any other way - if the Doctor designs a cheap and effective method for harvesting multiple crops at once, then she'd be doing something worthwhile - otherwise she's simply blowing hot air stating the obvious.
Gabe Brown has shown how to do it with multiple species. Obviously we still have a lot of work in getting the education and what goes with what in a given context, as he describes it.
For example development of pasture land, a lot of experience is out there. I just saw a few videos and even in Chihuahua desert they are figuring it out.
I was wondering if they have figured it out for market gardening. What would Richard Perkins say, pretty smart and experienced guy.
I didn't think hot air for Dr Jones. Instead i was thinking of how we educate young people.
So your concerns are important, bu progesss... @ArthurDentZaphodBeeb
👍👍👍👍👍👊
David suggests 40% of original mass. I measured the first 12 of 36 JS batches and my average was 27% of original mass.
Depends on the original materials. With straw I got about 27%, with horse manure, about 60%
The more "browns" ie dead matter that is in the original materials, the more compost you'll end up with.
But, to break down the original matter, you need enough "greens" which are recently if not still living material that provides the fuel for the microbes to break down both greens and browns, and that is the amount your pile will shrink.
@@tonysu8860 This is only true up to an initial C:N ratio of about 30:1. Beyond this if you let the material fully compost you'll end up with a lower percentage of the starting material. In order to get down to the stable ~12:1 C:N ratio of finished compost more of the initial material has to be respired off in order to reach this concentration if you start the process with excessive browns.
@@camilovallejos9462 do you have any advice for doing this composting with cow manure? Also have access to cereal straw and ponderosa pine chips. Know where I can find out what ratios and how to put them into a reactor?
@@Trapezoidal do you have any advice for doing this composting with cow manure? Also have access to cereal straw and ponderosa pine chips. Know where I can find out what ratios and how to put them into a reactor?
Is the content in this video about F:B ratios misinterpreted?
I'm looking at numerous slides in this video which describe the between Fungi and Bacteria but a ratio is only a comparison between two things... I don't think that a ratio of anythings says anything about the volume and yet I keep hearing comment about how the ratios are supposed to illustrate growth and increased biomass.
It's the ratio of the total biomass of one to the other.
A comment on the Johnson-Su bioreactor design.
IMO it's insufficient and produces relatively poor quality compost in relation to the time required.
First, regarding quality...
It's important to know what the objective is, which is to produce completely composted material that supports microbial activity, not partial results.
Partial decomposition means untapped capacity and plant growing resources which are locked in an unusable state for your crops.
Note also that unlike proper hot composting which breaks down practically everything that's less than about 2" in diameter(tree branches, small stumps), less efficient design results depend heavily on feeding the pile material that's high in surface area (like leaves) and not fibrous (like palm fronds, corn stalks) and not bulky (low surface area relative to mass)
A properly executed hot compost pile requires pile turning to ensure continuous high temperatures that approach boiling water at the core of the pile that will break down even branches and wood blocks up to a couple inches in diameter. The pile turning is continuous (about once per week) over 90 days to ensure for most of the time the pile maintains high temperatures until there is no more material to decompose. Only in the last couple weeks or so, the thermophilic bacteria and fungi die off as the temperature lowers and is replaced by bacteria and fungi that thrive at ambient temperatures.
The result is a jet black material teeming with beneficial bacteria ready for crops and will likely already also be populated by all the insect and animal life (like worms) that are attracted to good soil.
I do understand the desire to avoid the heavy manual labor associated with hot composting (Turning a wet pile at least a cubic yard 12x over 90 days is hard work unless you use power tools). But there is no known substitute that produces the same result and as quickly.
The Johnson-Su bioreactor looks to me like a cold compost pile experiment that didn't produce desired results so worms were thrown in, and then becomes a product mainly of worm composting. If that's the real functionality of the Johnson-Su bioreactor, then there is no need to waste an entire year, the worms can be added immediately after the single thermophilic reaction dies down below 90 degrees F which should be about 10 days or so after the pile was begun. How fast results are produced depends entirely on the number of worms, but I would estimate whatever results the Johnson-Su bioreactor might produce in a year could probably be produced in less than 6 mths by adding the worms promptly as soon as possible.
Johnson-Su isn't a compost in the conventional sense of the word. It's an inoculant composed mostly of fungal spores and encysted bacteria along with other SFW organisms and based upon not only total exhaustion of the food material in the pile, but also upon the proper succession of organisms (largely consisting of fungal dominance), and emergent microbial ecosystem behaviors (phyla connectivity, etc.). You don't get this same effect from doing traditional Berkeley-style hot composting. Johnson himself admits that his compost is bereft of nutrients compared to other composts, and yet it still ends up with plants which out perform other composts because of the biological component. You will not get the same performance out of 2kg/ha of injected Berkeley compost as you do with the J-S material.
As his analysis of his compost shows, even at 6 months of processing the compost is incomplete compared to its state at 12 months, ie. at 6mos it is less diverse and less 'even'. The J-S process already adds worms ASAP; typically in something less than a week since it doesn't tend to heat up above 130*F for more than about 3 days. As soon as it's about 80*F worms are added.
The reactor without any worms will still make the same quality of compost, but it takes twice as long. This is the same as if you make the compost out of 100% wood chips compared to other materials - it takes twice as long.
If you have to have a high throughput of composted material, or if you need to apply compost as a source of nutrients and carbon to your soils and crops then hot-composting is a great system (though other cold-composting like the SPIC system may be better). The J-S isn't really meant to handle 100% of all compostable materials generally speaking, exceptions being in cases of high-salinity manures, etc. Its purpose is as an inoculant to compliment other integrated farming practices and systems, not as a source of nutrients.
@@Trapezoidal do you know anything about at what point we do need to worry about replacing the macronutrients we remove from the soil at harvest? I get that it makes the abundance of nutrients already in the soil bioavailable to the plants, but if we harvest enough times without putting the nutrients back we will run out of potassium and phosphorus eventually right? I guess the microbes can figure out the nitrogen for us if we let them.
Curious how you would deal with composting tons of cow manure from what's currently a cow and calf operation.
@@gekkobear1650 In a lot of soils (ones with clay), with proper biology+return of biomass to promote nutrient cycling you'll never run out of potassium. Many soils have tens of thousands of pounds of potassium in them per acre just within the O/A horizon.
Phosphorous can be more challenging, but if you look at the total minerals contained in bulk soil (unextractable by typical agricultural soil tests) there is often tremendous amounts of locked up P. More specifically, if you apply P fertilizer you often only have access to about 10% of that per year - most of it locks up immediately to be extracted later. So in a rough way many farm soils may have centuries of locked up P just from the fertilizers that have been applied.
In the most general sense what you're shooting for is growing things like cover crops to return large amounts of carbon to the soils to promote the biological cycling. The living plants pump sugars into the soils to feed the microbes, and then the dead biomass of the plants provides further carbon and nitrogen to fuel further amounts of microbial activity. David Johnson and many folks who have followed up on his research find that it's this return of biomass to the soils which is most crucial - the inoculant just being there to get things started in a good way. Basically you want to return 60% or more of the biomass produced over a year to the soil to feed it.
Folks like Gabe Brown have figured out some good systems to make this happen. Integrating livestock into the mix helps recoup costs associated with planting the covers, and also can help terminate them and integrate the biomass back into the soil.
For dealing with large amounts of cow manure I would really consider looking into the SPIC composting method out of Australia. It's basically an inoculated anaerobic composting method similar to making silage. You can make the inoculant in your kitchen too since it's just lactic acid bacteria which makes the whole thing very convenient. No need to turn piles which is an advantage over aerobic wind-row composting. I've seen some reports where the SPIC compost has had really good growth promotion since there's a lot less biomass lost in the composting process which leaves more carbon for the soil microbes to in turn promote plant growth. A very interesting option especially if you're re-applying the composted manure to your own fields.
There are also some folks who've made large feed-through JS composting setups to process large volumes of manures. Seems like a neat option as well. Folks are always looking to buy finished JS compost, and indeed if you have a market for finished compost it could be a very good option for at least some of your manure. As the compost comes out with less salts than traditional aerobic manure composting it's a good option for home gardeners, etc. The Johnson-Su composting group on Facebook has a lot of info and examples of people's setups.
For a good example of an aerobic composting method to use, the Lubkes "controlled microbial composting" is a really good system. It's an aerobic system that has less turning than traditional windrow systems. It could be a happy medium if you wanted to sell some good quality finished compost but also wanted to apply much of it back to your own fields.
@@Trapezoidal thank you for your detailed response! I'll look into spic and some larger scale Johnson Su stuff
Sigh, you've completely misunderstood what the J-S method is trying to accomplish - it's to generate a fungally-dominant aerobic compost that is used to make compost extracts/teas. They are then applied to innoculate seeds and soil.
Conventional hot-composted material is bacterial-dominant. Most degraded soils are already bacterial-dominant, so adding hot-composted material doesn't help restore the bacterial-fungi balance needed for healthy/productive soil biology.
The J-S method is dead simple - just need to maintain constant moisture and add worms for vermicomposting. The no-turn method allows for fungal spores to develop (every time you turn a hot-composted pile you destroy much of the fungal life, hence why no-turn compost is so desireable).
Great presentation but I have trouble understanding why the sequestration of an essential trace element in the atmosphere is a good thing. We know plant growth is inhibited by the low availability of this element which is why horticultural growers routinely inject it into their greenhouses raising the levels to those the planet used to enjoy within the atmosphere many eons ago. Surely sequestering more into the soil will further reduce plant growth, particularly in the most marginal areas of the planet and I can’t see this being welcomed by the peoples indigenous to those areas, not many people enjoy starving. Its all dreadfully confusing.
My understanding is...
Carbon as part of CO2 in the atmosphere is a major factor in trapping heat within the earth's atmosphere which causes extreme weather and general warming of the planet which is causing the large reservoirs of ice to evaporate and increase the amount of water everywhere in our environment, causing sea levels to rise and more moisture in the air which provides the energy for extreme weather events.
Carbon sequestration is trapping carbon in a place where it's not causing major changes to the environment. One place is in soil. Others talk about sequestration in living plant life, others talk about in the materials we use to build things, like in concrete. The idea is that if carbon can be removed from our atmosphere, then the heat that shines on earth and produced by burning things wouldn't be trapped in our atmosphere and would escape into space.
Additionally, carbon in the soil doesn't inhibit plant growth. Water is one of the most necessary substances necessary for life, and carbon in the soil enhances water retention, making the water available for longer times for roots to tap into the moisture. Water in the soil is also essential for the microbial growth described in this video, when the ground lacks carbon like the Sahara desert, then microbes and plant life find that environment difficult.
Increased CO2 levels has proportional effects on the relative abundance of all molecules in primary producers relative to the molecule's C:N mass ratio. This can be seen in the abundance of vitamins in a plant, for instance. Vitamin E which has no nitrogen in it will be enhanced, but the other vitamins B5, B6, B2, B1, B9 in order of increasing fraction of the weight of nitrogen are reduced proportionally.
This is also seen in protein abundance. Increasing CO2 leads to decreasing levels of protein (a nitrogen-bearing substance). You may have an increase in biomass, but this increase is in the form of carbohydrates and fats and not protein. So you could have higher crop yields but they would be less nutritious and more likely lead to obesity and other such problems.
Human civilization has only been able to arise within a very narrow and globally predictable climatic window. Changing the parameters of this good deal we've been granted could result in instabilities which we, as a civilization, may not be able to weather...
Since Bill Gates is the largest private landowner in the country, surprised the Gates Foundation isn't strongly supportive. Gates is known for deep-dives into the science behind his philanthropy, so it makes me wonder what he sees (or doesn't see) that keeps him from funding Johnson's research.
It's not as profitable as the intellectual capital of seed genetic engineering and chemical formulations. Look up what he's doing around the world. He's a just leaning in to the old system.
I acknowledge that the host is cringe af
Although I do believe in the idea that microbial diversity can lead to healthier animal and plant lives including humans, the claims in this video regarding such things as an improved immune system is probably an excessive claim. Based on microbiologists' own admissions that the taxonomy of microbes has hardly been touched, it's unlikely that any causative studies exist... You'd have to study, classify, and identify data before you can perform informed studies. My guess is that the existing state of knowledge is likely based on subjective correlations which can only suggest a possible theory and nothing substantial.
If anyone knows differently, please post.
I don't believe in a science of conjecture, I believe in the practice of scientific theory.
Do you use a microscope?
Pretty sure Johnson-Su would agree with you, particularly Su (she seems the brains of the outfit and Johnson the talking head)
Thanks for posting your reviewed papers,lab reports microscopy and citations
@@ArthurDentZaphodBeebThanks for posting your reviewed papers,lab reports microscopy and citations