It is not just in the soil but in the plants as well.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/do-plants-have-microbiomes?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9551cc0276-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_05_31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f36db9c480-9551cc0276-67247101&ct=t(EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_5_31_2018)&mc_cid=9551cc0276&mc_eid=54e911cc1a

There is the chemical component that Ag students learn in Ag School, but they learn nothing of the biological life in the soil. Some may want to visit this video (about an hour long) https://livingsoilfilm.com/ to learn more about the biological life in the soil.

Good links, thank you for posting.

"There is the chemical component that Ag students learn in Ag School, but they learn nothing of the biological life in the soil."

I don't believe this is at all true! All the Soil Science classes at local hort and ag schools here have a very thorough presentation on soil biology. May not be the same everywhere but I wouldn't tar all schools with the same brush!

That's one of the most absurd things I've heard kimmsr say.....and there have been lots. How did you come up with such a notion, kimmsr?

I spent a great deal of time in my senior level soils classes at Va. Tech and I assure you that soil biology was weighted every bit as heavily as soil chemistry.

Maybe kimmsr went to school a long time ago when that was true. Things do change - clearly for the better on this one.

There is a great movement toward understanding the role of microbes in human biology as well. I've heard quite a bit about it just in the science media, so I would assume that students of medicine, pharmacology etc. are learning this stuff too.

I really dislike the phrase "ecosystem services". How about the living world or something similar that conveys value beyond it's immediate use for people?

There is a news story today on the topic Kimmsr brought up with kind of an unbelievable headline for me and likely other organic gardeners:

"Microbes in the crop rows: Soil's secrets may yield a new ag revolution"

The lead:

"There is life — tiny, microbial, can't-see-it-with-the-naked-eye life — teeming in the dirt under our feet. It's a complex, largely unexplored world — and thanks to the efforts of a Minnesota scientist, is becoming one of the newest frontiers of farming and science.

"Many scientists refer to microbial dark matter, just like we think of dark matter out in the universe, which is the unknown," said University of Minnesota professor Linda Kinkel, who's leading international research efforts to learn more about the microbes that live in soil. "The soil microbiome in particular, which is the most diverse microbiome on the planet, still remains largely unknown."

The it gets really mind boggling:

""And this is the funny thing. It's like everything we do in agriculture to produce a crop is going to have an effect on our microbiome, but we've been working blind, for hundreds of years we had no perception of what we're doing to our microbiomes," she said.

But what if, instead of killing the disease-causing microbes, farmers focused on the good ones? What if they tried feeding and supporting the beneficial microbes that can help prevent disease or help plants absorb more nutrients from the soil? "

She should speak for herself and only those who have never heard of organic agriculture, aerated compost tea and stuff like that.

Gene sequencing of bacteria must be what they think makes it real science. Its good that they are at least trying.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/11/26/soil-secrets-may-yield-new-ag-revolution

Agricultural education has always been science based and research driven. Anyone spending any time studying horticulture, agronomy, soils, and other agriculture based sciences at the college or university level will understand the dynamics of the living soil.

Kimmsr gleans his information from gardening magazines and popular organic publications, some of which may be guilty of telling part of the story.

What is certain is that the more we know about soil biology, the better we realize how much more there is to be discovered.

I have posted about this in the past, but after seeing a couple of presentations by Rick Haney, the stodgy resistance against biology being the dominant consideration in soil fertility was simply academic inertia. Guys were simply not funded, not getting tenure, and so no research was happening. In Russia, things about biology got worked out pretty much in the 1920s. The the old generation retired and genuine research could move forward.

In regard to Kim's post, let us remember that it is plants themselves who drive fertility. The whole food web collapses (or at least is strongly reduced) without sugar exudates in the rhizosphere.

Rhizo and gardengal both make erroneous assumptions about my gardening education. As I have previously posted here I completed and was awarded the Master Gardener and Advanced Master Gardener certificates from Michigan State University and while not pursuing a degree in the field have attended numerous gardening related classes, taught by professors from both Michigan and Michigan State.

Neither Rhizo nor I made any assumptions about your education, kimmq, and I have no idea why you decided to take this personally. All we did was counter your unsubstantiated statement that Ag/hort schools do not teach about the soil biology. And that is based on our experiences attending these types of schools and receiving degrees in the field.

Master Gardener..........well, there you go! Of course that makes all the difference :-)

It is sad that this thread has been partly reduced to the exchange of personal views and opinions not related to the subject of the life in the soil. Thank you LoneJack for putting it back on its track with your link.

All the articles in popular publications are of course much simplified and reduced versions of the information in the scientific publications, but they deserve credit for bringing the subject closer to the general public.

Here are links to two fascinating scientific publications. Follow the internal links there if you want to learn more.

Washington State University website. Soil Biology in the Key to Healthy Soil - article written in 2002, with references to earlier publications http://pnwsteep.wsu.edu/DirectSeed/conf2k2/dscclapperton.htm

US Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service website. Soil Food Web https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detailfull/soils/health/biology/?cid=nrcs142p2_053868 

FWIW, both of those are publications/texts that were supplemental reference sources for my Soil Science classes. And quite a few others :-) So as noted previously, this IS a topic that is delved into pretty thoroughly at the college level.

It is also a good thing that this information is being more widely disseminated to the general public. It is a topic I address in the Soils classes I teach for hobby gardeners, so I believe I am doing my part as well.

thanks for the great links,

I read a trilogy of books,

teaming with fungi

teaming with microbes

teaming with nutrients,

preparing for a soil "science" course (just acouple of hours/ lessons) which I give for for arborists regularly

I really like all the details and do try to spread the knowledge,

with the trees it is interesting that in a healthy living soil with rich microbe-numbers pathogens are surpressed to a certain degree just by competition...

and I try to talk all the old timers at my garden club/ alottment out of rotor tilling their soil to death...

I would still not call it a revolution which sounds like a hefty exageration to me, and as those critters are so delicate I really think that there are limits to their work/ habitats

and the discussion is probably helped along/ revived by new tecnology, those books I read have impressiv pics from microscopes, showing details of mycels, nematodes etc

Thanks linaria for the titles.

Just to expand a little, the mentioned by linaria books: Teaming With Fungi, Teaming With Microbes, Teaming With Nutrients were written by " one of the most humorous and entertaining lecturers on the garden lecture " Jeff Lowenfels. Here is more information about him, his books and his blog http://www.jefflowenfels.com/

I rarely look at this forum but am very interested in Permaculture and healthy soil. I clicked on this thread because of those interests. I have to say that I am disgusted by the tone of some of the posters here (and I'm sure you know who you are). Why do some people have to put down others and make sarcastic comments? It is really childish to do this on anonymous forums where no one can look you in the eye.

Come on; if you feel the need to do this, perhaps you need some help, psychologically speaking, that is.

Really. This is supposed to be a forum about people learning about this important subject. Grow up!!!

What I find perplexing is why someone would enter a discussion where the last comment was the better part of a year ago and offer nothing of any substance to the discussion itself but only to chastise previous posters......and in a far more particularly unpleasant manner than any of previous comments. Pot, kettle, black!!

If you were a more frequent visitor you might realize that some posters frequently offer statements or opinions that are wildly inaccurate or have no scientific substantiation behind them and that these comments can be very misleading to others, especally those new to the topic. Correcting them or offering countering viewpoints is par for the course.

An online discussion forum is always going to draw in personalities. If you don't like that then you should perhaps just restrict yourself to reading books :-)

Well, I rest my case, gardengal.

debbym seems to have a very low threshold for being disgusted. I was, at first, perturbed, but not ever disgusted. We all come here with different experiences. At first I was going to support kimmsr entirely, but I just checked the agronomy classes at Texas A&M and found they have ONE class in soil biology. This is 2019. Unbelievable. So I cannot completely agree. I will say when I went to school (early 1970s), anyone doing organic gardening or farming was an outcast, a hippie. I would also suggest that up until 2015, at least in the San Antonio area, the Master Gardener program graduates were forbidden from talking about organic gardening. It was so bad that a group of gardening specialists formed a new group with new training available to include organic gardening.

And gardengal, do you really not see why kimmsr/kimmq took your statements personally?

Anyway, too bad this topic went this direction.

So, we've got perturbed, and disgusted. In response to the recent threats to public harmony, I am upgrading my personal peace threat level. Taking a cue from our friends across the pond, the threat level is being raised from '"I Beg Your Pardon?" to "Miffed." [1]

[1] Terrorist Threat Warnings Around the World, 2013: The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have therefore raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.” The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.