There have been many words written about living soil with very few words written about how balanced living soil effects whole food nutrition. The connection between living soil, the proper balance of macro and micro nutrients and the resultant food nutrition couldn’t be more clear. How do you go about achieving the proper balance of nutrients, activate the nutrients and yield the maximum results? When is the proper time to amend the soil with nutrition?
There are some field tests you can do to get the perfect mixture of sand, silt, and clay. Technically the perfect mix of these three is 40 percent sand, 40 percent silt, and 20 percent clay. Empirically, if you make a ball of dirt with your hand and it falls apart without any other force, there is too much sand. If it stays together and actually has trouble falling apart, even when you push on it, there is too much clay. Ideally, the ball will hold together but will crumble when pushed on. This perfect mixture will retain the proper amount of moisture and allow proper fungus and root migration. While this is important, it still leaves many questions unanswered and it still may not be living soil.
Soil that contains improper ratios of macro nutrients (calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, hydrogen, and sulfur) will produce plants with imbalanced nutrition and typically the plants will not absorb many of the micro nutrients (too many to list here) if the macro nutrient ratios are off. Many organic farmers, even ones who understand living soil, will make the mistake of simply throwing compost at their soil and hope for the best. Get the soil testing done, especially if you care what you and your family eat. Test in late summer, amend your soil in the fall and be sure to make your soil a living soil by using a living fertilizer. The proper ratios of the macro and micro nutrients can be found at the link in the resource box as well as test facilities to test your soil.
You can have exactly the proper balance of macro and micro nutrients and still have plants produce less than they are genetically capable of producing. This is a function of Exchange Capacity. Exchange Capacity is a measure of how alive the living soil is and how much ability it has to hold and release nutrition to the plant, similar to a battery’s capacity to hold electricity. Exchange Capacity is largely influenced by a few factors including humus, earthworms, bugs, fungus, and bacteria. Living soil with good humus content will have a high exchange capacity. This combined with a proper balance will allow your produce to give you and your family maximum nutrition. For more information about how you can have living soil, a great exchange capacity, and the highest nutrition your plants can produce, visit the link in the resource box.
