In the children’s nursery rhyme, The House That Jack Built (origins circa 1590), we are seduced into imagining a shonky house — not because anything that is revealed by the house, but rather the improbable series of events that lead to our eventual introduction to the house.
This is not unlike our introduction to Regen Ag — too often the claims made, and the paths to soil restoration are improbable indeed.
Nevertheless, a house — but certainly not Jack’s house — is a perfect metaphor for the process of successfully creating healthy, productive soils.
We all understand the purpose and process of building an enduring house: start with a clear picture of the finished house, put the plan together (architect and builder), make sure the foundations are to spec, put up the frame, rough in the electrics and plumbing etc, clad the roof and walls, insulate, fit out and furnish.
All of this before the family moves in with the ultimate expectation that they will have a safe and happy home for a long, long time.
Building a healthy soil is no different.
The goal is clear: a soil that provides everything for our plants to thrive and produce healthy feed for the herd, and perhaps more importantly, vegies for us.
For this to occur, we have to build a cosy, safe home for the microbes that are going to work hard to feed those plants on which we and our livestock rely.
In soil, the foundations are the mineral balances that control soil structure — the ones I’ve been banging on about in several previous articles; the plumbing and electrical make up the humus — controlling water holding and availability, and the ion exchange capacity, respectively.
And so it goes — in an orderly manner taking care to execute each step in turn. Sure, we might begin bits and pieces of the next phase before the previous is finished, but essentially we follow the plan.
In our soil health journey, the end game is a warm and cosy house for the microbes in the rhizosphere — the metabolic hot-tub comprising the 1mm around the plant roots — NOT the plants per se.
If the microbes are happy, they will adequately supply the needs of the plants.
And this is where many soil health journeys go astray. Cherry picking, or plucking out of a hat, what piece or pieces of a soil restoration/Regen Ag are implemented is doomed to failure.
We wouldn’t build the frame of our house without first attending to the foundations, and we certainly wouldn’t hang our electrics in fresh air while we wait for the frame to appear. This is no different.
In previous articles I have discussed soil structure and the key bits of science controlling pore space, and why that is important.
We have also gotten a better understanding of the role humus plays and where mixed species pastures fit in, and how necessary they are to both support a diverse soil microbiology and pull a heap of atmospheric carbon back into the soil through increased photosynthesis.
All of this is to prepare the home for the ‘family’ to move in.
We want a massive amount of a diverse population of microbes colonising the soil and feeding the plants.
When we achieve this, we will have a truly sustainable, healthy soil and as a result, healthy plants and healthy animals requiring very little outside inputs.
Next month, we will discover which of the soil microbes are most important and why.