Dr Elaine Ingham talks Biological Farming, Bacterial Fungal Balance, the Nitrogen Cycle, & More

Dr. Elaine Ingham delves into the science of the soil in terms of F:B ratios, pH, the Nitrogen Cycle, Biological Farming, No Till, & more!!! Want even more?? You can download The Permaculture Student 2 FREE which was peer-reviewed and edited by Dr. Elaine Ingham along with dozens of other experts - see what fully cited, reviewed, and edited permaculture looks like: www.thepermaculturestudent.com...

[@dg7542]

I could listen to her talk for days.. best human ever!

[@jc1865]

Elaine is bringing solutions that are ground breaking (ecosystem saving) and we desperately need wide adoption. I recently started the foundation classes and am loving it. I have a BS and MS (1992) in biology and nothing like this was taught in the Big Ag dominated Midwestern university at that time.

[@ThePermacultureStudent]

Please feel free to download the book that Elaine peer-reviewed & helped me write the Soil section in: www.thepermaculturestudent.com/download-ps2-free It's cited too and a PDF so you can read the source materials readily as well :)

[@shihtzusrule9115]

I was driving west in the country and I noticed this brown cloud that was blowing from south to north. I was going to have to roll my window up or get hit with the dust. It was a small area of dust and I was looking for the fire or the source and I noticed this guy south of the road was tilling and every bit of his topsoil was blowing north and getting scattered in the pasture north of the road. It was just amazing. It made me think of the dust bowl days as I was in Kansas on the Oklahoma border, was actually driving to Bartlesville, OK. I kept thinking can he not see where his soil is blowing?

[@monicacruz4407]

So many nuggets of wisdom in this small conversation…I’m building soil

[@I.am.Mumma.Bear.1]

Anyone else get distracted watching the little boy having fun playing with the dog in the background 😊💕👍🏽 🐶 I’ll have to watch the video again to hear what’s being said 🤣

[@ThePermacultureStudent]

hehe ;) he's a big boy now! It's amazing how fast time flies. He still loves dogs and rescues them at every opportunity ;)

[@thehealthadventurer6919]

Such profound wisdom! Wonderful.

[@dandingo168]

I'm a fan of Dr Ingham

[@TheWritingGirl]

The dog with the little boy in the background was so cute

[@plantingthenorth7225]

7:59 hummingbird!

[@jeffreybraddock3031]

I've listened to this 3 times good stuff

[@PermacultureHomestead]

saw Elaine on PermacultureVoices channel and fell in love, she has a beautiful brain.

[@tkomla]

Yes, she does! Lovin Matt pretty well too 💜😊🌱

[@careyjamesmajeski3203]

This comment was much better received, lol. Cheers, dude.

[@yLeprechaun]

This is a great series of vids, Matt.

[@johnduffy6546]

Amazing video. Thank you!

[@fabiantechnician2797]

Greatest Person

[@amandajs971]

Totally amazing you are with the incredible Elaine ❤🌻💪!!!

[@plantingthenorth7225]

Love this stuff!

[@tristankeeffe3418]

Great video thank you.

[@kiwiwriter]

Thank you. I build soil in single digit years. Fungi and bacteria are crucial to the process, as is the weather, and animals to do my turning for me. Turn unwanted biomass to compost and chip. Apply this to the vegetation you want to encourage. The humus portion of soil is mostly made of recalcitrant parts of microbes and fungi that have been 'weathered'. It is not plant parts as the official line suggests, it is microbial in origin but those microbes proliferate on plant matter. The weathering is about wet/dry, and how partially decomposed matter subject to drying forms portions of it that become this recalcitrant non-digestible humus. Chickens turn the mulch layer allowing this wet/dry phenomenon to take place. In nature there's plenty of critters working the mulch layer as well. As your mulch layer becomes part of the soil food web the process of weathering and turning mixes the newly formed humic compounds where they might begin their practical application straight away, by attaching to, and then releasing, nutrients. I theorize plants driving their microbial community structure drive soil pH thus controlling the function (release or uptake) of humus.

[@jcjensenllc]

She always says bacteria create soil structure by agrigating particles with their glue. As I understand it, a genus of fungi called Glomeromycota does that much more effectively than bacteria but she rarely mentions that.

[@ThePermacultureStudent]

AMF is responsible for 1/3 of carbon sequestration & they are ephemeral lasting days and weeks only in their relationship with the roots of a plant BUT Elaine trialed all these soil food web members alone and in twos, and 3s and found that nothing works without them all, so they are passing the ball back and forth so to speak, and with the discovery of micro bacteria INSIDE the mycelium, we may find that there's another deeper layer to it all.

[@shree0404]

Hi Thanks for sharing the info. Was very helpful over all, But. Im Having trouble with Radopholous Similis Nematodes, Can you prescribe a natural way of controlling these.... Wood really Appereciate.

[@ThePermacultureStudent]

I highly recommend her course for those detailed questions - did you miss the live Q&A last week?

[@nygrlinnv]

I live in Las Vegas. Is there a way to improve the soil, which has a lot of caliche?

[@wadepatton2433]

Watch more Elaine Ingham, and other scientists active in this field, they say the form of the soil is not an issue once you get the biology into the soil. I would start by making compost and by covering the ground with whatever plant matter is suitable for your region. A 'scope could be handy to see what's there and track the changes. One of the farmers I've seen (perhaps Gabe Brown) tells of driving across brown "desert" to get to a place where he said it was ALL lush and green and full of life and _not_ irrigated but only managed with regenerative agricultural practices.

[@TylerDWard]

I heard a TED Talk about how the elephants trample the plants which adds fertility to the soil...but before he learned that he was killing the elephants thinking they were causing desertification

[@Cappyrising]

OMG I'm loving the child/dog relationship in the background :)

[@nygrlinnv]

Me too! :)

[@nicolasvanlangendonck9179]

Thank you very much for those wonderful explaination. I have a question: If I cover the soil of my vegetable garden with woodchips and even innoculate them with myccorhyzal fungi, can I risk to end up with more NH4 than NO3? Will it be also the case if I put my kitchen wastes on the floor of the vegetable garden? If there is more NH4 than NO3 in the vegetable garden, would it hamper the vegetable to grow well?

[@ThePermacultureStudent]

Good question :) When it is bacterial dominant and Nitrate NO3 dominant it grows vegetatively vigorously but doesn't form flowers or fruits well. Conversely, having it be dominantly NH4 Ammonium will steer it towards flowering and fruiting early and avoiding vegetative growth. This is for typical Annuals - not perennials which rely upon more fungal dominant soils with ammonium more dominant BUT not without nitrate also in some circulation. There is always an overlap for all plants - this is why no till is powerful. Every micrometer the pH changes drastically.

[@nicolasvanlangendonck9179]

Thank you very much for your pretty clear answer.Thankyou for your time. So, for coming back to my question, you would not favor too much fungal life in the vegetable garden? A little bit of fungus and acidity is good for preventing "weeds" but too much fungus (therefore acidity and NH4) would hamper the vegetative grow of my vegetable? Did i understand well your reply?

[@ThePermacultureStudent]

Right - it needs to be a mix, a range, and that comes with no-till or low till situations using organic carbonaceous and microbiological inputs.

[@nicolasvanlangendonck9179]

Thank you.. So, you would not innoculate the mulch (beiing woodchip, straw,compost or vegetable waste,...) of your vegatable garden with fungi spores, right?

[@ThePermacultureStudent]

I'd use mycorrhizal fungi that pairs with annuals ;)

[@paulolivier3254]

100%

[@mitchelllott]

🤯🤯

[@TylerDWard]

the amazon is getting cut down for money not wood for fire

[@ebbaneezafeelgood2094]

Can you bring this wonerfull lady to my house please

[@ecocentrichomestead6783]

WEED: A plant growing where you don't want it to grow. The word "weed" is an anthropocentric judgemental word. A lot of so called weeds are useful food, herbs, medicine.

[@raulduke7142]

She knows that, im sure. She is speaking big picture.

[@mikeshafer8543]

all weeds are useful foods herbs and medicines if they aren't for our stomach they are so to the microbes!

[@caseG80]

There are some that are headaches bull thorns or tumble weeds are a couple that come to mind. But I’ve been having a great time discovering all the things I used to look at as weeds are types of lettuce or thistle many edible or medicines like comment says. One thing that has helped me is an app on my phone called garden answers and all you do is snap a picture follow the steps and answers pop up of what the plant pictured is or could be. Happy growing all!

[@jcjensenllc]

I mostly agree but there are plants that outcompete crops for nutrients in the upper 5 centimeters of soil but those "weeds" usually only thrive is unhealthy soil. So until your soil is healthy the crop plants with shallow roots growing in unhealthy soil will be killed by the the "weeds" by being starved. If I remember correctly, the "weeds" can can also be parasitic, or saprophitic.

[@xxpowwowbluexx]

Weeds are better defined as very early successional plants.

[@heyphilphil]

I love how he had already obviously believes in Climate Change....and just backwards engineered this talk to just confirm that.

[@jasonsimmons4319]

Thats because his belief is based in science. Climate change deniers are the epitome of confirmation bias, ignoring all evidence and basing beliefs on stuff they hear on fox news.

[@neurotoxic7290]

F:B RATIO 300/300 + FTW!