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Showing posts from December, 2016
Soil Secrets -  Biomimetic Soil Ecology - "To Copy What is Life Like" Category of Product:  Pre-Biotic -  A  substances that stimulates the growth or activity of microorganisms (e.g., bacteria and fungi) by creating or supporting a favorable environment.    In this case the environment is soil and the  area close to the plant roots called the  rhizosphere.     1.  TerraPro -  Tested and Measured doing a molecular characterization down to a sub-atomic level,  under a Commercial Proprietary Information Contract by Los Alamos National Labs with Sandia National Laboratories,   TerraPro  is a carbon rich Macro-Molecular Substance (huge molecules clustered together into Supramolecular groups).  Supramolecular just means that the molecules are highly energized and they self assembled into larger structures where the molecules are not chemically bonded to each other.  In nature the carbon that accumulates on the surface of plant roots, the result of a chemical reaction and

Fixing Soil using Carbon: Can Soil Carbon Sequestering be Encouraged and How Does This Change The Water Management Equation?

By Michael Martin Melendrez, Founder and Managing Member - Soil Secrets LLC It's common knowledge that the idea of increasing the amount of soil organic matter is generally a good idea.   Its an even better idea if you live in a place on the globe where soils never truly developed a defined zone of topsoil that one can see with the naked eye.  Where I live in the arid Southwestern Chihuahuan Desert the only place we can truly see carbon rich topsoil is where lots of natural vegetation was able to grow over many hundreds of years, depositing organic debris and growing lots of roots that finally decay and contribute to this accumulation of decaying organic matter.   An example of this might be along a creek or river where riparian vegetation is getting enough water.   It's also commonly accepted that soil organic matter (som) increases the soils potential for holding onto water, where its been said that for every 1 percent of increase in soil organic matter you can hold
I've been reading up on new ways to access changes in soil concerning the Soil's Biota (the microbes),  who they are and what diversity there is. I've found a bunch of published writings on using phospholipid fatty acid (known as PLFA) as a method of measuring this factor.   Microbial components are expressed as content of phospholipid fatty acid markers specific for each component.   I've attached one article that used this method in measuring the microbial community structure on various sites including one treated with biochar.   Since many of you continue to ask me about biochar this grabbed my attention.  The study found that the site treated with biochar tested out pretty good, so I decided to look at this closer and when I did I found that the amount of biochar used per sq. ft. was 3.5 pounds, 152,460 pounds per acre.   Holly Smolly, can you image using that much TerraPro, how fantastic the results would be? I've attached the paper so you can read it.  I

SOUTHWEST SOIL HEALTH CONSORTIUM FLYER

Here's additional information on how well TerraPro's organic chemistry benefits agriculture by using vegetation analysis with infrared. These are almond orchards in California. You can easily see that the fields treated with TerraPro have more leaf cover and are needing less water because the soil and biomass temperatures are lower. At our own arboretum in Los Lunas the soil temperatures are 16 degrees cooler than other sites in Valencia County at the same time. The lawn images are one year apart in Merced California.
I'm thrilled to share this Proof of Concept with the world. For many decades there have been products that claimed to fix soil, conserve water in agriculture, help soils retain water, increase carbon in the soil, and make the soil a better place for microbes to live. In recent years Bio Char has become the rage with similar claims of success. However Bio Char can be nothing else other than the cellulose of wood that has burned off the lignin glue that holds the cellulose together as wood. Remember that Cellulose is glucose linked together as a larger complex sugar, so once the lignin is gone, the remaining molecular structure cannot have much of a Mechanism of Action that can change the chemistry or physics of soil. Since Bio Char is lightweight in bulk density its possible that if you used enough of it you could fluff up the soil and change its porosity, therefore increasing the soils ability to absorb water and oxygen. Remember that an acre of sand one foot deep will weigh about