Locking up carbon in the soil

[Farmersdaughter]

This seems to suggest that microbes fed simple sugars produce organic matter. So would that imply adding molasses to liquid fertilizer will be helpful?

Better still use plants to produce root exudate which the microbes can turn into SOM. Short cut the harvesting and processing then spreading of molasses. Not sure which plants produce the most exudate but there most be done research out there.

 

[Simon C]

This is all fairly obvious, higher plants exude sugars to feed the microbes which then make nutrients available and it is this that gradually builds stable humus. What people don't generally understand is that putting undecomposed OM on or in the soil, whether crop residues or muck, is not going to end up as Stable Organic Carbon. Most of the C, maybe 90%, is going to released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, (aerobic) or methane, (anaerobic) decomposition.

Dr Christine Jones has been banging on about this for some time, have a read of some of this stuff on her website-
http://www.amazingcarbon.com/
http://www.amazingcarbon.com/PDF/JONES-LiquidCarbonPathway(July08).pdf

 

[martian]

Interesting perspective too, from Charlie Clutterbuck:

https://sites.google.com/site/soilanimals/learn/global-warming-and-soil-animals

What is astonishing really, is how little is known about these creatures, especially as they are so important to us as a) farmers, trying to grow healthy food and b) citizens of the planet whose atmosphere we are messing with.

There's some other interesting posts on his website about the effect of herbicides on soil creatures

 

[conor t]

This is all fairly obvious, higher plants exude sugars to feed the microbes which then make nutrients available and it is this that gradually builds stable humus. What people don't generally understand is that putting undecomposed OM on or in the soil, whether crop residues or muck, is not going to end up as Stable Organic Carbon. Most of the C, maybe 90%, is going to released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, (aerobic) or methane, (anaerobic) decomposition.

Dr Christine Jones has been banging on about this for some time, have a read of some of this stuff on her website-
http://www.amazingcarbon.com/
http://www.amazingcarbon.com/PDF/JONES-LiquidCarbonPathway(July08).pdf

Humus formation is now thought to not actually happen at all. There doesn't seem to be any really stable chemicals that cant be broken down observed in the soil apart from some forms of charcoal, but its the protection that more simple sugars and proteins get by interacting with clay and silt that leads to stable carbon. The supply of reactive sugars/proteins is governed by the microbial biomass and turnover.