How to Increase Soil Biology

Regenerative agriculture is creating a lot of attention right now in the marketplace. This is very exciting because regenerative agriculture has the potential to help us fix many of the problems that we have, including the need to reduce pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, but perhaps more importantly, improving the quality of the food we eat. 

Abundant levels of soil biology are fundamental to all of this. 

Growing exceptionally healthy crops and food is not always easy. But it is rewarding. When we follow God’s principles and work with nature, it is possible to get life into the food we eat and make it exceptionally healthy. Do we have all the details of how to do it? No. But we do know that it all starts with getting life into the soil. 

What is Soil Biology?

Think of soil biology, also known as microbes, as very tiny animals living in the soil. They make minerals available to the plants, help protect the roots from soil borne pathogens, produce enzymes, improve the soil structure, fix nitrogen from the air, and perform various other functions. 

There are about 8000 pounds of microbes per acre in healthy soil, according to Harold Willis. This means that healthy soil just might have more underground livestock than what is feeding aboveground. Of these 8000 pounds, there should be about 2600 pounds of bacteria, 1300 pounds of actinomycetes, 2600 pounds of fungi, 90 pounds of algae, 90 pounds of protozoa, 45 pounds of nematodes, 445 pounds of earthworms, and 830 pounds of insects and other arthropods. 

Foundational Principles to Understand about Regenerating Soil

It may be helpful to remember that soil microbes, being alive, have the same basic needs that we have: oxygen, water, food, and a good environment. Understanding this is the basic foundation to getting life into your soil. 

Being human, not everything you do will enhance this cycle. There will be things that you do that will work against nature. The goal, though, is to do more good than harm. The more this is tilted in favor of the good practices, the faster the soil will regenerate. 

There are also 5 basic principles that help you get more life into your soil. 

1. Limit disturbance. 
2. Keep the soil covered.  
3. Build diversity. 
4. Optimize photosynthesis. 
5. Integrate livestock. 

Let’s break these apart:

Limiting Soil Disturbance

When you limit disturbance, you are often creating a better environment for biology. Too much tillage creates loose soil with no structure, which means that it will crust with the first rain. Crusting means no oxygen. Poor soil structure also means that the water will not infiltrate properly. And, tillage oxidizes carbon and organic matter, which reduces water holding capacity. 

Keeping Soil Covered

When you keep the soil covered, you are creating a cushion that prevents rainfall from creating soil surface crusting. And perhaps more importantly, soil that is covered does not get as warm in summer, which is critical because soil that is not covered in July can be 130 degrees, which is much too hot for microbes to function. And judging from a strawberry project where we are measuring temperatures above and below covers, the soil would not get as cold in winter, which could mean that metabolic activity would continue at a higher rate during the winter.  

Building Diversity

When you build diversity, you build different microbiomes in the soil, which is not only important for building healthy soil and capturing maximum amounts of sunlight, but also for producing medicinal compounds in the food. 

Optimizing Photosynthesis

When you optimize photosynthesis, you are pumping sugars into the soil. Sugars are the food source and the active carbon for the soil microbes. Optimizing photosynthesis also means that a living cover crop needs to be in that soil as much as possible, and capturing as much of the sunlight as possible, because obviously, it takes a living crop to photosynthesize. 

Integrating Livestock

When you integrate animals into the system, you now have a “vehicle” to graze the grass or cover crops, trample in the leftover residue, and spread the fresh, good manure. 

In conclusion, much more could be said. You certainly need to understand your context and make adjustments accordingly. But when you understand how these core principles effect soil health, and put them to use, you will see a difference. In your farm, your food, and your future. 

How to Increase Soil Biology – the Deeper Dive

There are some more factors that we can talk about beyond the basic principles of soil regeneration that we just discussed. Gary Zimmer calls them the 3-legged stool of healthy soil: the biology, the chemistry, and the physical nature of the soil. Each of these is important and they influence each other. 

Whenever we have a question about a certain product or management practice, we should consider how it will influence each of these three major factors. 

Let’s look at each of these individually and see how they might influence each other:

PHYSICAL

The physical component of the soil is essentially the soil structure. Is the soil hard and clumpy? Well aggregated? Does it absorb water? Can the roots penetrate? 

This component of soil has a major impact on the biological component, because most microbes need to breathe in order to thrive. If the soil is hard and has a compaction layer in the top 12+ inches, then you can rest assured that it will have a negative impact on biology. 

The physical structure of the soil also has an impact on the chemistry – or mineral balance – especially nitrogen. The atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, which means that there is 32,000 tons of nitrogen over every acre of land. BUT that nitrogen is not available until it has either been fixed into the soil by plants or nitrogen fixing bacteria. And before it can be fixed by microbes, the soil has to be able to inhale the air, which it cannot do effectively if the soil has compaction. Availability of other minerals is also negatively affected because of poor biology. 

If you want to imagine what a healthy soil should look like, think of a chocolate cake; you want a well-structured and spongy soil. The chocolate part might be overstated, but you get the idea. Another way to describe the ideal soil would be to imagine a used deck of cards, where there is air space in-between the cards. A new deck of cards, which still stands flat and has almost no air between the cards, would be similar to a compacted soil. We want the soil to look similar to the used deck of cards, with plenty of pore space present so that the roots can grow and the microbes can breathe. 

CHEMISTRY

From a soil mineral perspective (chemistry means the balance of the soil minerals), the very basic rule of thumb is that calcium loosens soil and magnesium tightens it – although it does have to be in balance. The chemistry effects the physical components of soil in this way. It also effects biology – again, because biology needs to breathe. 

An explanation of Total Exchange Capacity (TEC) or Cation Exchange Capacity is in order. Sandy soils typically have a low TEC, in the range of 3-5 approximately, while good clay soils are more like 15-30. Why is this important? Because sometimes clay soils test as having a TEC of only 7-10. When that happens, you can expect that the clay has aged and collapsed, making a tight sticky soil. 

In these cases, if calcium and magnesium seem to be in balance from a base saturation perspective, it is typically helpful to apply a calcium source to help structure the soil. What has happened is that the clay has become so compacted that it has lost its holding capacity, and it needs help to become a productive flocculated soil again. Productive soils need pore space so that the aerobic microbes can breathe and so the roots can grow. The average roots will not grow more than 1 inch into compacted soils. 

BIOLOGICAL

Why is biology important? As outlined above, biology has many roles in the soil. They make minerals available to the plants, help protect the roots from soil borne pathogens, produce enzymes, improve the soil structure, fix nitrogen from the air, and perform various other functions. In these ways, biology has a major impact on the chemistry of the soil, as well as the physical structure. 

To me, improving biology is a fun conversation. I love talking about biology because it trumps everything else. Of course, all the other pieces we talked about are important, because everything has an impact upon each other. However, remember that when you lay your foundation by using the management principles described above, it is very easy to jumpstart biology with some of the easy tools that are just becoming more available and more affordable. 

One of the basic tools to use is a sugar source, such as Rejuvenate or Root Primer, that feeds the soil biology. This mimics the sugars that are sent out through plant roots to feed the biology. This is generally the starting point – feeding the biology that are there so that they can multiply quicker. 

However, microbial inoculants are also very beneficial for jumpstarting biology. This is because a soil really needs to be loose and structured in order for the biology to thrive. The crop roots really need to be going deep in order to expand the productive zone of soil. And while this will happen slowly in a regenerative system, the timeframe required for it to work is much longer than when good microbial inoculants are used properly to jumpstart the process. 

BioQuest Microbial Inoculants

We are excited to publicly announce that we have just released a new line of microbial inoculants – branded as the BioQuest line – that are very potent and affordable. BioQuest Foundation, formulated for soil applications, has over 1.4 billion microbes per gram, with a one-pound application per acre costing only $24.49 when purchased as a twenty-pound container. 

Our vision in all of this is to build a very strong base of biology everywhere so that we can more-rapidly regenerate soil and our food supply: on the seed, using BioQuest Magnifier (or BioQuest Soybean Inoculant on Soybeans); in the soil, using BioQuest Foundation (or BioQuest Catalyst for acid loving plants like blueberries); and on crops, using BioQuest CropShield. Contact us if you have questions or for more details. 

How to Start Building Soil Biology?

Our favorite starting program for jumpstarting soil biology is a carbohydrate like Rejuvenate or Root Primer, mixed with BioQuest Foundation and EnSoil Algae. These three have been giving us very interesting results when applied together. Consider contacting a regenerative agriculture consultant here at Keystone Bio-Ag to help evaluate your specific needs and we will recommend the best course of action for your soil and your crop.