Lennox & Addington County, Ontario
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About soil biology health testing
The Soil Food Web School method provides a comprehensive analysis of soil health by examining its microbial life—bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes. Unlike conventional tests that focus only on chemical properties, this approach highlights the biological balance needed for thriving plants and ecosystems. Key benefits include:
- Increased Productivity: Understanding the soil's microbial composition helps identify deficiencies or imbalances, allowing targeted interventions to optimize plant growth naturally.
- Reduced Dependency on Chemicals: By leveraging nature’s own processes, this method helps reduce or eliminate the need for synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, lowering costs and environmental impact.
- Enhanced Soil Resilience: Balanced soil microbiology improves structure, water retention, and nutrient cycling, making soils more resilient to drought and extreme weather.
- Carbon Sequestration: Healthy soils with diverse microbial life store more carbon, contributing to climate change mitigation.
- Regenerative Practices: This test supports a shift toward regenerative agriculture, which rebuilds soil organic matter and restores degraded lands.
- Customized Recommendations: Tailored insights empower farmers, gardeners, and land managers to create site-specific solutions for healthier plants and ecosystems.
The pyramid builders of soil
Bacteria and actinobacteria
What they do: Bacteria and actinobacteria are the chief work force which break down organic matter, and produce enzymes to extract mineral from parent material. Their purposes range from generic to ultra specialized, and their balance and diversity is a direct indicator of soil health and direction in relation to other actors.
Why you need them: Plants in healthy soils utilize a process called rhizophagy where plants are proven to be meat eaters. Using exudates made from photosynthesis, plants attract bacteria and swallow them through the root hairs. They then ranch them inside their own plant tissues, embed them in seed for to prepare the next generation, and break the cell walls down and devour them for nutrients. Research is hypothesizing this to be the principal method of nutrient cycling. The catch is this process doesn't work in the presence of high test fertilizers and chemicals designed to kill various pests.
How we test for them: Their physical traits can be determine general status and health momentum in soil without expensive genetic testing. It is extremely clear when a soil is healthy versus in a dangerous pathogenic state by just looking at the overall groups of bacteria. Basic microscopy cannot determine what populations you have, but it can show if you have a diverse system that supports higher life species that truly indicate positive versus negative conditions.
Nature's superhighway and internet
Saprophytic and Mycorrhizal Fungi
What they do: Fungi are part plant and part animal and evolved onto land likely before plants did, paving the way for terrestrial life on Earth. They are the master brain-trust in healthy soils using super powers for both good and evil that science is only beginning to unlock.
Why you need them: They create complex networks of information and transportation under the soil. These fungal networks are literally the internet of nature signalling the location of resources, and calling out threats in the neighborhood, to infrastrucdture specialists establishing trade routes and delivering complex nutrients that plants cannot source on their own. Fungal populations are the key facilitator which help plants build advanced health, resistance, and immunity to environmental and pest pressures. These health traits are then passed up the chain to animals eating them.
How we test for them: Measure for signs of beneficial Saprophytic and Mycorrhizal fungal populations verus anaerobic, and potentially pathogenic populations. The fungi to bacteria ratio will indicate the maturity and succession of your soils.
Zoo animals of the underground jungle
Protozoa: Flagellates, Amoebae, and Ciliates
What they do: Protozoa are a diverse set of multicelled organisms that are one higher order of life above bacteria. Protozoa are omnivorous grazers which feast on a wide range from bacteria, to fungi, to decaying organic matter.
Why you need them: They are important in nutrient cycling and guaging soil health and they occupy a wide range of states from aerobic to partially anaerobic.
How we test for them: The counts of different groups of protozoa signal current state and momentum of a micro-environment. While we like to see aerobic protozoa, having numbers of facultative anerobic protozoa are important for different portions of nutrient cycling. We can tell based on periodic testing which direction soil or compost or tea is going in.
The armed forces of the soil
Nematodes and microarthropods
What they do: Nematodes are not a species, or a family, but an entire phylum and they operate much like armed securtity forces. Depending on who they work and how motivated they are, they will either protect or anhilate your argicultural interests.
Why you need them: They are an extremely diverse organism that eat pretty much anything depending their type. But they can only exist when there is an abundant food chain below them providing them sustenance.How we test for them: The diversity and population size of nematodes either an indicator of higher functioning natural soils, or acute chronic conditions that require a cleanup crew. Carefully counting and estimating thes populations is critical.
