People are, in general, very helpless creatures.so . . . people are smarter than sheep & only eat whats good for them ?
sounds like some farmer friends are too dumb to observe & understand their animals
CrackerI know im always banging on about fungicide use . . .
Why nature restoration takes time: fungi grow 'relationships'
February 8, 2017, Netherlands Institute of Ecology
How strong are the 'relationships' in soil communities? From left to right the interaction strength between groups in seminatural grasslands are visualized on recently, mid-term and long-term abandoned agricultural fields. Credit: Elly …more
'Relationships' in the soil become stronger during the process of nature restoration. Although all major groups of soil life are already present in former agricultural soils, they are not really 'connected' at first. These connections need time to (literally) grow, and fungi are the star performers here. A European research team led by the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) has shown the complete network of soil life for the first time. This Wednesday, the results of the extensive study are published in Nature Communications.
Earthworms, fungi, nematodes, mites, springtails, bacteria: it's very busy underground! All soil life together forms one giant society. Under natural circumstances, that is. A large European research team discovered that when you try to restore nature on grasslands formerly used as agricultural fields, there is something missing. Lead author Elly Morriën from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology explains: "All the overarching, known groups of soil organisms are present from the start, but the links between them are missing. Because they don't 'socialise', the community isn't ready to support a diverse plant community yet."
When nature restoration progresses, you'll see new species appearing. But those major groups of soil life remain the same and their links grow stronger. "Just like the development of human communities", says Morriën. "People start to take care of each other. In the soil, you can see that organisms use each other's by-products as food." In this way, nature can store and use nutrients such as carbon far more efficiently.
Fungi as drivers
"Fungi turn out to play a very important role in nature restoration, appearing to drive the development of new networks in the soil." In agricultural soils, the thready fungal hyphae are severely reduced by ploughing for example, and therefore the undamaged soil bacteria have an advantage and rule here. The researchers studied a series of former agricultural fields that had changed use 6 to 30 years previously. With time, there is a strong increase in the role of fungi.
Earlier, researchers did look at fungal biomass, but that won't show you the whole story. "After six years, about 10% is fungal biomass and 90% is from bacteria. Still, we discovered that already at that stage, about half the carbon - being the food - goes to the fungi. After 30 years, that share has risen to three quarters of the carbon stored. Fungi really are the drivers in natural soils."
From steppe to savannah
The international team compared grassland soils from all over Europe. In the Netherlands, research fields on the Veluwe were included. "Worldwide, you find many types of grassland ecosystems. Think of steppes, tundras, prairies and savannahs."
A unique opportunity, Morriën calls it. Because of the European consortium EcoFINDERS, data for many species of soil organisms from many different locations could be studied. By labelling the carbon atoms, the research team was able to follow the food flow throughout the whole soil ecosystem. In this way, they could link the organisms to their corresponding functions in the community. Morriën: "This linking has never been done at such a large scale before. Now we can finally get an advanced view of a complete and intricate soil community." And who knows: "We might be able to help the fungi restore the missing links, which will speed up nature restoration considerably."
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-02-nature-fungi-relationships.html#jCp
Cracker
Land is never going to be anything close to sustainable until we can learn to step back and not intervene, but instead learn to manage
As my good mate Jeff found, with having green mulches under his cereal crops, it doesn't actually require new cultivars to sidestep fungal issues, but a walk in the forest with your eyes open
I fear most only go there to walk the dog and moan about the insects, not to study how nature makes things work reliably.... or go on overseas pilgrimages of discovery but don't see the answers at their feet:
Growing roots
Groundcover
Diversity
Mineral Abundance
Adaptation
No wonder agriculture keeps shitting in its underthingys
?insects
funny u mention him did u look at his thread in agri matters titeled shoestring. my thoughts were how it paralleled holistic or am I wrong again. but without the regenerative aspectYou can learn an awful lot simply by observation.
Just like @Walterp does; but sharing your findings can leave you open to scorn and ridicule because others don't seek to understand complexity, merely to complicate.
Even listening in on conversations you soon realise that most participants are merely using it as a game of oneupmanship, not an actual transaction of information - they only listen long enough to come up with something to respond with; and this largely sums up intensive agriculture.
It largely sums up what I just did
However: your sheep can still eat willow buds for minerals regardless of financial pressures on the farm, so is an infinitely better system than being responsible for addressing the concerns yourself - the trees are saving you work.
You can puzzle over what they are lacking, or not, the world was a much simpler place before we dissected and analysed everything
I love insects
seeing spiders in my fields - they really are the good guys ).
Unfortunately for Walter, every thread he posts turns into another bloody painful Brexit debate.
There is an article in the farmer's guardian this week moaning because politicians want farmers to be carbon neutral. Apparently it would make us uncompetitive.
I don't think carbon neutral is enough. Why not make farmers actually capture carbon. It also rather spectacularly misses the point that the lower input 'competitor' countries which we struggle so hard to compete with are a damn sight more carbon neutral (if not sequestering) than this country FFS.
Quite.
