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| January 13, 2022 Shelton Mason County Journal |  |
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What is the soil food web?
his week, I started writing a
Tcolumn on massaging a water
extract out of compost. Halfway
through, I realized you
affiliations are often compromised by
our use of pesticides, fungicides, her—
bicides and everything from brake
fluid to hairspray,
might wonder why I’d
bother with all that.
It’s been an odyssey
for me to realize that
compost is' multifari-
ously alive. As, such,
I may never have ex—
perienced it fully. I’ve
made compost that did
the job for years, but
I didn’t know why or
aspire to better.
comprise a good com- ~
post can’t be knocked together at a
dumpsite. It has to be cultivated from
diverse materials that mature in ideal
conditions; anything else and you’ll
have a one—trick pony at best or at-
worst, a biological weapon. (Spoiled
compost has been used as pesticide,
and I’ve used the stinky alcohols in it
to lure slugs.)
This matrix of relationships is prop~
erly called a web, unlike the simplistic
“food chain” that some of us grew up
with. All kinds of microcritters eat and
depend on each other in the soil and
balancing them is key to everything
from fertility to pest prevention to wa-
ter retention.
That we can steward and implant
this with our compost is staggering. I
have studied many examples of people
and firms using biologically complete
compost around the world and sus-
pect that it’s not front and center in
the zeitgeist because there is little to
trademark and nothing to patent in it.
The soil food web’s ancient
ALEX
PENINSULA
The complexity PEBMACULTUBE
of interactions that
so it is both timeless
and troubled. Recent
science has demon-
strated how these dy-
namics unfold in the
absence of chemical
complications.
Elaine Ingham
wrote the US. Depart-
ment of Agriculture’s
Soil Biology Primer,
and produced the ac-
companying illustra-
tion. The publication is
available if you search
“USDA soil biology primer,” which is
way shorter than its ponderous URL.
All plants, be they woody or soft, die
down into organic matter that feeds
fungi and bacteria. Many plants’ living
roots also feed bacteria and fungi with
nutritious secretions called exudates.
Root-feeding nematodes, of the type
that have given all nematodes an un-
deservedly bad name, nibble roots too.
Ideally, they end their malevolent lives
in the mandibles of microarthropods.
Bacteria are eaten by microar-
thropods (like the adorable box mite),
nematodes or protozoa. Fungal hyphae
— imagine hidden roots that eventu-
ally produce the fungus we see —— are
grazed by the former two of that trio.
Predatory nematodes and larger
arthropods are the next trophic level
up, and new science has shown that
fungal- and bacterial-feeding nema—
todes are, in fact, food for arthropods.
Predatory nematodes are also gobbled
by arthropods while arthropods are
munched by birds and animals. This
AUTO ' HOME ' BUSINESS
Thursday, Jan. i3, 2022 Shelton-Mason County Journal Page A-7
studies.
Mums
*Gmeis
i txwhk level:
The Soil Food Web
The soil food web. Photo credit: Soil and Water Consen/ation Society
(SWCS).
Soil Biology Primer. Rev. ed. Ankeny, IA: Soil and Water Conservation
Society.
last level is just about where our na-
ked eyes can see what’s happening.
All of this eating has a natural con-
comitant, and that is the secret of soil
health. The shelf-stable wastes of all
these critters stock a pantry for your
plants, and the vegetation encourages
and curates the contributions it needs
by emitting exudates from its roots
and aerial parts. V
These exudates lure the desired
bacteria and fungi that in turn attract
higher trophic predators so that the
whole is bustling with reciprocal life,
crowding out the decay that comes
from anaerobic microbes that prosper
in suffocating rot.
These lifeforms and wastes can be
banked in the soil hundreds of feet
down. Tree roots have been measured
at 250 feet below the surface seeking
water and nutrients in their down-
ward flow.
Aggregates, which are clusters of
mineral particles and organic matter
joined by bacterial glues and fungal
hyphae, keep soil loosely VstrUCtured
and add tilth. In such conditions, wa-
ter and roots can penetrate to plutonic
depths — and that is an investment
we need in a world of erosion and cata-
clysmic rainfall that polarizes season-
ally to a wildfire tableau.
I Alex Fe’thiére has lived on Harst-
ine Island long enough to forget New
York City, where he built community
gardens and double-dug his suburban
sod into a victory garden. He can be
reached at 0nlandist@gmail.com.
V
I‘SURANCE '
CALL THE GOOD PEOPLE AT HAWKS VIEW INSURANCE
221 W. Railroad Ave. #10, Shelton,7WA 98584 c 1014 Bay St. #10, Port
Orchard, WA'98366
‘ 209 West Patison St, Suite D, Port Hadlock, WA 98339
Office (360) 308—8008 o www.hawksvicwinsurance.com