Farmers need to release manganese and other metals from soil reserves. Here's how. | Regenerative Ag

When soil biology has an oxidizing effect, the supply of bioavailable manganese, iron, copper, cobalt, and other minerals is greatly decreased.
In this video, AEA Founder John Kempf explains why excessively oxidized soils tie up manganese and other metals. John also describes the cultural management practices that can shift soil to a more reduced state, releasing mineral metals in a plant-available way.
Quality Agriculture by John Kempf: www.qualityagriculture.com
Understanding Redox Potential Course on Kind Harvest: kindharvest.ag/courses/ra-rps...
Advancing Eco Agriculture works with growers to create customized crop programs, combining our biological and mineral nutrition products with regenerative practices to improve crop quality, yields, and disease and insect resistance while regenerating soil health.
AEA Founder and Chief Vision Officer John Kempf is a leading crop health consultant and designer of innovative soil and plant management systems. He has a unique ability to simplify and clearly explain complex concepts in the areas of soil and plant health, and skillfully discusses the larger social and environmental impacts of food, agriculture, and ecology.
Check out the AEA website for more information: hubs.li/Q010fql40
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[@davesherman988]

Very interesting stuff, but some of your chemical arguments/explanations are a bit confused. For example, the manganese in MnSO4 is not oxidized even though there are four oxygen atoms in the formula. The Mn in MnSO4 in the +2 oxidation state (reduced) and hence will be bioavailable. Adding HCO3- to a solution (or dripline) will not change the oxidation potential (or Eh) of the soil just because there are 3 oxygens in the formula; those oxygens are already reduced! (OK, under very reducing conditions, CO3-2 could be an electron acceptor, but it is the carbon that is being reduced. ) A few ideas that might be helpful: The reason that oxidized Mn is not bioavailable is that because forms a very insoluble mineral called birnessite (MnO2). BTW, this mineral strongly sorbs Zn and Cu and I would bet that sorption to birnessite will be the limiting factor for dissolved Zn and Cu in most oxic soils. Some bacteria (facultative aerobes or facultative anaerobes, I guess) use birnessite as an electron acceptor and release dissolved Mn+2. The reason an “ORP” electrode is not worth bothering with is because the reaction at the electrode surface is usually not in chemical equilibrium with various soil redox couples; indeed, the soil redox couples are usually not in equilibrium with each other. Hence, the Eh number you get from the Eh meter is pretty meaningless.

[@slizzardman]

Exactly. Electrode placement will always be outside the aggregates, which is not useful since meaningful poising occurs within the aggregates under conditions that should be technically/scientifically described as microaerobic, meaning pO2 of 2 ppm or less, but not zero. It would be really neat if we could somehow place an ORP in the center of a few different-sized stable aggregates along various soil horizons, but that is nearly impossible since placing the electrode would damage the aggregate and the affordable ones are physically too big for meaningful use in this context since most aggregates will be 5mm or smaller. I really like how this channel fosters the only consistently scientifically thoughtful and useful clarifying conversations in the comments... definitely a welcome experience.

[@davesherman988]

@@slizzardman Well, yes indeed, there is a substantial microspatial heterogeneity in the Eh (or pe) of a soil and that is pretty important. What I am saying, however is that even if you stick an electrode in a homogenous aqueous solution, you will get a result that probably does not reflect the dominant redox couple. The couple that the Pt electrode sees is probably something like O2/H2O2 since that is the redox couple that is most labile at the electrode surface. However that redox couple is probably not in equilibrium with the other redox couples (such as NO3-/NH4+ or Fe+2/FeOOH or Mn+2/MnO2) in the aqueous solution. The only time that I’ve found a Pt electrode to give me a chemically useful result is in acid mine drainage water where the dissolved Fe at pH 2 gives a fast reaction so that is what the electrode surface was seeing. Anyway, the only real way to characterise the redox state of a soil would be to directly measure the chemical speciation associated with the redox couples of interest (i.e., measure pH, dissolved O2, Fe+2, Mn+2, NO3-, NH4+ etc.) and then calculate the Eh (or pe) from a given redox couple. Each couple (e.g., Fe+2/FeOOH, NO3-/NH4+, O2/OH-, etc.) would probably give a different Eh value, but that is why soils support life: microbes (and all life, actually) depend on redox disequilibrium.

[@slizzardman]

@@davesherman988 That is such a great point for all of us to keep in mind... I mean in a complex medium such as every biological system and thus also soil, a raw voltage measurement does not tell us which redox pairs are responsible for said measurement. Without that information it is very difficult to make specific causal determinations by which to guide precision interventions. Much like pH, redox potential and potential electron values are primarily important in the immediate rhizosphere, and will vary from one root hair to the next. They are heavily influenced by rhizosphere activity such as root exudates and root-microbe interactions, which will vary based on relative metabolic activity and also based on the targeted nutrient uptake for each small section of the root system. While there are certainly bound to be many relevant insights waiting to be observed and integrated into the current body of data, in reality we need to worry less about taking and making sense of measurements so we can focus more of our energy into employing logical real world interventions that are driven by current knowledge as well as empiric evidence that may not yet be fully characterized or understood, so that we can continue to improve our ability to consistently achieve the desired changes in soil characteristics, plant health, crop yields, and ideally reduce costs and increase profits while (presumably) also restoring the resilience of our local and global ecosystems. Potential electrons and redox potential are inherent

[@dylnthmsn420]

Thank you John. Just bought the book

[@lynndolson8436]

Regarding the question of the benefit of injecting atmospheric oxygen into the water in a subsurface drip tape for Alfalfa...I suspect he is injecting Air, which is 78% NITROGEN and those nitrogen-fixing bacteria are purring. It is not about, or in spite of the oxygen. This would be easy enough to prove with some pure oxygen tanks. Thank you John for everything that you do. I just ordered your book.

[@TheFarmacySeedsNetwork]

A comment on injecting atmospheric oxygen into water in one of the questions at the end of the seminar: years back, a group of Us online did some experimentation with different Water treatment techniques. We captured rainwater, we tried well water, we tried bubbling air through the water for 24 hours before using it, and many other things. What we found, was it the water that we bubbled for 24 hours with air or aerated was far more effective at supporting photosynthesis and plant growth. Knowing what I do about water now, I suspect it has something to do with structuring the water in a specific way. Thanks for everything you do John thanks for these great webinars!

[@slizzardman]

It isn't the structuring of the water, I mean you cannot really "structure" a liquid or dissolved gasses within liquids. What you are most likely accomplishing is a more effective momentary oxygen delivery to the inherently aerobic and oxidative zones of healthy soil, namely the roots and microbial communities that exist in the pore spaces and on/near the surface of stable soil aggregates. This is what happens "naturally" every time it rains, and it will cause a "natural" brief fluctuation in the soil microbiome that "recharges" the poising capacity against extremes in either direction of baseline redox state at any given soil horizon and along the inherent spectrum of aerobic -> microaerobic zones within soil aggregates. This is a very, very temporary event: even water that is maximally saturated will return to microaerobic conditions within 2-3 hours in a biologically active soil because the microbes will literally use oxygen that quickly. I think this is very likely to be an underestimated factor in irrigation, and it would not surprise me if an efficient aeration strategy for irrigation water such as simply using Venturi siphon close to the field irrigation inlets that are specifically designed to aerate water (instead of diluting a liquid concentrate such as a fertilizer) ends up having a very, very noticeable positive effect while also being extremely cost-effective and extremely low maintenance.

[@AdvancingEcoAgriculture]

Thank you for sharing your experience and contributing to this discussion! - The AEA Team

[@christopherburman3340]

@@slizzardman if I understand this properly then there is a company in South Africa that produce an irrigation unit that does this. Company called Agriwater. Reports on the effectiveness of these units are positive. I believe they now export to USA and definitely to Australia. Graeme Sait also endorses the product on their website and has a unit on his apple farm. There is a Sait podcast from earlier this year (March or April, I think) that discusses it.

[@christopherburman3340]

One podcast was is 2021 by graeme sait called 'water the gold' followed by another this year when he interviews the owner

[@slizzardman]

@@christopherburman3340 Thanks for the reference! There are a few different suppliers, and Venturi siphons are also exceptionally easy to make for yourself so it's really a question of "simply" understanding that for relatively low-velocity 'fluids' like air and water you can get so close to the same siphon flow from a single large inlet vs many smaller inlets that you really only need to use the available body of data to design a very cheap and effective system by using things you probably already have on-hand. It helps to know that research tends to consistently show that with subsurface drip irrigation of various row lengths the yield increases are almost entirely noted along the first 150ish row feet, with the overall best results appearing to be from the 30 foot to ~100 foot marks... but that is from a single inlet with lines that are capped at the end. Even if you have 200-400 foot long rows you will be seeing increased profitability, but you can get a much better result if you supply the drip tape from both ends. This is because you eliminate the VAST majority of the pressure drop along the tape and you also supply the freshly-oxygenated water from both ends so you are going to get very similar amounts of dissolved oxygen AND suspended tiny bubbles along the entire row, effectively nearly doubling the yield increases on a 300 foot row for example. More consistent results and better economic return for the same injector investment (assuming you are using a larger central injector connected to a manifold) is kind of a no-brainer, and because when you purchase your row connectors in bulk the cost is so low per row that IF you have rows longer 150 feet the data suggests that it will unquestionably be more profitable to supply the drip tape from both ends... you're talking about less than 20 cents per row extra cost, and that particular part is reusable more-or-less indefinitely so it is a one time expense that is offset by just a few extra salable fruit per row. When you know that on the low end you'll be seeing 10-15% increase in overall yield and on the high end somewhere between 30-40%, with the same or better increase in net salable yield, that is a no-brainer for many crops, but obviously you'd have to look at your farm's context for each crop to see what is worthwhile and what is not, where you may want to place your initial "learner" system, and so on.

[@lokes2]

🤯Good Stuff. Ty

[@hangingthief71]

thank you for bringing the importance of redox to my attention, 14:50 you say what is needed to increasing photosynthetic efficiency is based on environmental parameters, i disagree, evolution is the most effective means to do that, locally adapt genetically diverse seeds on farm and let the plants worry about the environmental parameters, save seeds from the plants that do the best and have the right traits for market, maybe in a small plot for the first year or two, until the farmer is ready to supply themselves with their own landrace seeds. update: 23:33 now that you have gotten to the solution being farmers shifting their management practice to restore cyclic oscillation between reduction and oxidation in soils i agree. interestingly that is also an evolutionary solution just at a different scale. this would be difficult(but importantly not impossible)to accomplish at scale in mechanized conventional agriculture but increasing heterogeneity in soil structure, biology, chemistry,and hydrology, particularly through changing micro-topography, landsharing with diverse native plant communities, and deposition of different kinds of biomass/mineral inputs here-and-there would surely help from the complexity perspective.

[@oscarherrera9049]

More please

[@regenerativegardeningwithpatti]

Very educational, your last statement about glyphosate is disturbing, What type of soil is it in for decades?

[@rumamont]

mns04 has 2 valence, which is very good. This is a reduced form with a predominance of restorative properties.

[@ProjectHomeGrown]

Thank you for some fantastic information. I would like to ask a combination question for application in an aquaponics system. For context I am using 6x 4500l fish tanks and combined with the deep water culture beds in the system a water capacity of 80 000l. In the case of aquaponics where I want to feed the micro biome to make nutrients and minerals bioavailable for plants that are grown with thier roots submerged in water. Does this mean that the aggregate is technically saturated and anaerobic in an aquaponics system? The whole system is aerated in the fish tanks, the deep water culture grow beds as well as in the moving bed bio filters. Does this now make it an oxidized system and most of the nutrient oxidized? In aquaponics our main nitrogen source is from the fish gills and thier waste in the form of ammonia and ammonium. With ammonium being more dominantley available at lower ph and converse for a higher ph and being more oxidizing. Would it be beneficial to have an aerobic and anaerobic form of biological filtration to help microbes with mineralization of fish effluent and make nutrients available in the correct form of nitrogen. I Would like to attempt to adjust my fish feed recipe and plant supplementation in a way that it feeds the micro biome so that I can have the nutrients bio available but also have it be the in its non oxidized form. All while having enough aeration (disolved oxygen typicly maintained at 6 to 8ppm) in the aquaponic solution to maintain productive plant growth, sustain the fish health and bacteria.

[@AlexandreLollini]

If MnSO4.H2O or H2MnO5S is not the right formula, then what is it ? Do you deliver Mn and Fe in the same solution ? Where can I find the right product outside of the US ?

[@TheNewMediaoftheDawn]

Very interesting and fascinating, a few points. -most plant roots like oxygen, that is easily demonstrable in hydroponics, not that that is an ideal way to grow, but plant root exudates like anaerobic apparently, which could explain why many people report great results with fermented nutrient teas that are low oxygen. -As for liquid manures being oxidizing and killing worms and biology, my guess is it’s more the low quality nature of the lagoons with harmful bacteria and chemicals used to kill them, as well as antibiotic residues, etc. you alluded to this. Not the manure per se. -I also use this Shultz 10-15-10 on my houseplants and bonsai trees, combined with other stuff like liquid seaweed, and it’s highly effective and the reviews are good, and besides NPK, contains, Iron, Manganese, and Zinc, interesting.

[@ronendvir]

Have you published information about the outcome of fertilizing with ammonium? lets say, will ammonium sulfate as a salt fertilizer will cause the same problems as all salt industrial fertilizers?

[@agriculturalmarketingwales6709]

I understood that Manganese is a trace element and therefore only needed in small amounts where-as Magnesium is a major nutrient and is the central part of Chloroplast and therefore key to holding Nitrogen in the leaf and this is the basis of chlorophyll and so surely we need to focus on getting the levels of this major nutrient correct first and it is therefore the most important for enhancing the Photosynthetic potential of the plant.

[@thegardenfarmer]

I'm confused about something...I bought John's book back in January 2022(this year)... but in this podcast he keeps mentioning that the book only came out a few weeks ago... Is this an old podcast just now being posted? Or is there a volume 2 of the book already?

[@InfoRB]

Did you say calcium silicate, potassium silicate, sodium silicate? Thank you. For foliar sprays.

[@sarahblackwell6046]

By ‘salt Fertilizers’ do you mean high in chloride like MOP? Thanks!

[@bluejay3945]

Outstanding! How about applying effective microorganisms via EM 1 applications? In theory this should improve the facultative anaerobic microbes

[@nickkitchener6155]

Provided there is a hospitable environment to receive them.

[@bluejay3945]

@Craig Dendy you need to expand your comfort zone and give the science a trial I was skeptical the first time I used a bottle of EM. It made my sad looking orchid rebloom. Took care of a severe aphid infestation on a Japanese maple and a specimen beech. Definitely helped soil aggregation on a barren piece of compacted construction site soil. I know there’s a lot of bro science out there but the more trials I do and the more you delve into the work of John from AEA as provided here, you begin to connect the dots. Someone said we know about.001% of soil science but that doesn’t mean work by folks like John won’t start to unravel some of the science. I for one have seen an incredible difference in my property by improving the soil versus feeding the plants NPK. Hope you at least give these applications a try and make up your own mind. Have a great summer!

[@davidka8345]

@@bluejay3945 John helped me to better understand the role of lactic acid bacteria (LAB), that's the main beneficial organisms ingredient in EM. He fills the blind spots, where Elaine Ingham lacks to give a more sophisticated prospect, e.g. the popular aerobic is good, anaerobic is bad take, which in reality is too simplistic. He also explained in another episode, when discussing fungi bacteria ratio, that it isn't bad to increase bacteria levels in the soil first, as it helps the soil fungi to establish later. Recently I learnt that natural farming (or KNF) gives you the recipe to make your own LAB with rice-washed water and milk. Natural farming also make use of sugar fermented plant juice (FPJ) as a foliar nutrient and gives recipes to collect, store and reproduce beneficial biology in your local area, called IMO (indigenous microorganisms), a fungi dominant soil inocculation. I treated sick snow peas with LAB and FPJ. They were dying, but after this treatment, they grew new healthy green leaves and peas. By the way, I read a copy of Teruo Higa's EM book "An Earth Saving Revolution", and he makes the same claims, as John did here, the main effect of EM is it's reductive properties. Higa also is involved in some sort of natural farming, called Kyusei Nature Farming and popular in East Asia.

[@bluejay3945]

@@davidka8345 Thank you. You gave an awesome reply and I appreciate your kindness. As a nay sayer to these anaerobic processes I’ve done an about face thanks to John because not only does he speak the science he puts his money into it. It’s exciting to learn something new. You are awesome and I hope you have a great summer. When I win the lottery tonight I’ll treat you to a beer or 2

[@davidka8345]

@@bluejay3945 you are welcome :). I'm glad to share this kind of information as I owe it to other prople, that they don't keep back their experiences neither. I was sceptical too, when I first tried out EM. But I experienced, that it helps to prevent smells in compost toilets. In the garden I couldn't observe an effect, probably didn't use it regularly or it was old and dimished in microbial activity, I don't know. However, when I started this year making my own LAB and ferments, that was a game changer, as I heavily scaled up usage of ferments and foliar spray application, as production costs are dirt cheap. Also natural farming helped me to better understand, how to use this kind of ferments. They often combine several ferments with small quantities of sea salt (sea water) as a source of trace minerals and let the mixture ferment for one or several days. It seems that the fermentation process helps to counteract the oxidative properties of the sea salt.

[@terrapuraregenerative]

I really would like to get in contact with John Kempf. I am on kind harvest but it doesn't work. Manganese is essential for the first step of plant health pyramid.

[@Stilgar74]

I would start with contacting AEA. They can pass on questions to John or answer directly themselves.

[@terrapuraregenerative]

@@Stilgar74 thanks for your answer. already done. The customer service did as wall. On kind harvest is the same. I thought kind harvest was a place to keep in contact with him as he often says but there I see posts from him 4-7 months old.

[@AdvancingEcoAgriculture]

Yes, please feel welcome to contact us here at AEA again (it seems you've already reached out, but we're here to help). You can reach us via email at [e-mail]. We have a lot of great resources that we are happy to pass along! - The AEA Team

[@daviddroescher]

46:25 Sub suffice drip injecting "Atmospheric O2" , why positive results? 20%is O2 70%N and others. You are dissolving N into the water. The saturation max increases with colder temperature water , and with increased pressure. This surpluses N will precipitate out of solution as pressure drops at the emitter ( in the medical fild this phenomenon is called The Bends normally seen in divers surfacing too fast as bubbles forming in the blood).

[@chadstallings5558]

👍👍

[@annburge291]

Brilliant webinar as always John. This is my favourite out of favourites.

[@JanOlafPettersen]

If you expose manure for air before spreading it on the field, would that reduce the oxidizing effect of manure when it is spread?

[@AKu-xs5vg]

No. Why would it?

[@JanOlafPettersen]

@@AKu-xs5vg First off, a simple "No." wont suffice. Please argument or document your answer. Air composting in manure cellars would change the environment so that aerobic bacterias would thrive in the manure, for up to 6 months before you spread the manure. How would that affect the bacterial composition for uptake in the soil you spread it on? Would the soil benefit from it?

[@davidka8345]

@@JanOlafPettersen most likely it depends on your compost biology. You need the right biology and a diverse biology for good results. How can you know, that your biology is good? You shouldn't guess, test it. Elaine Ingham for example gives good introduction, how to assess microbiology in soils or compost with a microscope.

[@klauskarpfen9039]

43:10 " .. sulfate SO4 ..." What John Kempf doesn't seem to understand is that the oxidation status of the sulfur in the anion has nothing to with the oxidation number of the cation. You can have manganese 2+ (the "reduced" form of manganese) together with a sulfur(VI) in the anion. The four oxygens in the sulfate anion do NOT at all indicate that the manganese is in the "oxidized" (+IV) form. Manganese (II) sulfate is a common form of manganese. The question of enhancing bioavailability through chelating has to be addressed separately from this.

[@paulbraga4460]

if you please, i am a gardener and would like to know how to use both iron sulfate and manganese sulfate which are common enough. can i put down these sulfates into the soil and be effective? may i use these as foliars and be effective? do i need to add anything to them to get them to the desired reduction/oxidation state. i understand humic and fulvic acid can be used for chelation? mygreathanks and blessings

[@klauskarpfen9039]

@@paulbraga4460 Iron makes up approximately 4% by weight of the earth's crust. There is hardly any soil that has not enough iron in it (peat might be somewhat low). Mostly it is a too high pH that fixates iron and manganese in their insoluble, poorly bioavailable forms. First step: Decrease pH, e.g by adding sulfur powder. In my soil, which is on clay with a content of approximately 20% Calciumcarbonate, I need to add ca. 50 to 100 grams of sulfur powder per square meter each year; I can also use dilute sulfuric acid, but I need about 3 times the amount of sulfur sulfuric acid compared to sulfur powder. The advantage of sulfuric acid over sulfur powder is that it works faster. BEWARE - diluting concentrated sulfuric acid is dangerous and should only be undertaken by a skilled person; NEVER pour water into concentrated sulfuric acid, always add the acid slowly to a well.stirred excess of water, the mixture gets very hot! Sulfuric acid acts faster than sulfur powder, which oxidizes slowly to sulfur dioxide, which reacts with moisture to sufurous acid, which then reacts with oxygen to sulfuric acid. Second step: Increase oxygen in the soil - change anoxic soil to well-airated oxic soil: In my case, with my very dense, highly anoxic, plasticine-like clay this means: Add sand, lots of sand, better even porous material such as perlite, pumice sand - or best, composted (!) biochar, better known as "terra preta". And keep in mind, even small trees easily send roots down 2 meters or more - so this means hard work and lots of digging, or better get someone with a mini-excavator do the hard work for you. Once your pH is low enough and your soil is well oxygenated the roots will be able to take up the iron and manganese compounds. Roots that can "breathe" - or live in symbiosis with mykorrhiza (also needs oxygen) can easily absorb the required minerals. If your soil, by some quirk of nature, should really be low in iron, you can let iron scrap metal (discarded food cans etc.) sit with dilute sulfuiric acid and use the highly acidic reaction mixture as fertilizer. Or use a mixture of ferrous sulfate and sulfur powder. The root system or mykorrhiza excrete compounds into the environment that can bring iron and manganese compouns into bioavailable forms, if(!) the pH is right, that means, NOT alkaline. And roots and mykorrhiza need oxygen to do that.

[@paulbraga4460]

@@klauskarpfen9039 mygreathanks and blessings😇will have to sit down for this....

[@paulbraga4460]

@@klauskarpfen9039 1st off, thank you very much for the immediate response 2nd, our soils are packed with iron. Not as much with manganese but sure have that. One ag scientist had dig a large and deep hole in an area for her to assess the soil (which kind of impressed me, except I got out of touch with the lady) and she pointed to me a kind of darkish layer and said we had manganese but tis tied up. Actually, we are just beginning with our efforts at our farm, or more accurately, restarting because the pandemic just created chaos. Surely, we will practice biological farming - pushing microbial performance to push plant performance. About our soils, they are acidic - I am from the Philippines where most soils are acidic. When I sent soil samples to the U.S. to one of those labs who do Albrecht style soil amending, I learned the soils needed calcium - calcium carbonate of course. The only reason I asked about iron and manganese tie-up is if we later come up against it since John Kempf is saying these are the 2 minerals that are the hardest to come by in the transition to biological farming. Which is why I am asking about using these sulfate for foliar and how to do that... blessings🌞

[@matthewkheyfets1309]

Can overwatering tomato plants cause blossom end rot?

[@karlsapp7134]

Yes, it can deplete mineral uptake

[@landontesar3070]

High calcium, high manganese, loamy clay soil. There is hope!

[@anthonyromano8565]

I thought bokashi was bro science. Now there is evidence for why it might work.

[@iwenive3390]

Bro science is still science

[@AKu-xs5vg]

That's not relevant to this. Bokashi = swamp conditions The video admitted that oxidation aeration tunnels are necessary and good, but that the internals of the soil crumb itself would be anaerobic. The video doesn't really say anything new in terms of practical holistic farming. Just do the same stuff as always like avoiding till and avoiding bare soil and the Mn uptake happens naturally.

[@iwenive3390]

@@AKu-xs5vg he does say that anaerobic microbe’s are needed for a redox environment

[@AKu-xs5vg]

@@iwenive3390 Yes he does, and that is not equivalent to saying that "aerobic microbes are not needed". Bokashi compost is basically a rotting swamp bucket, and you collect the nutrient-rich leachate. The soil in your backyard is NOT bokashi compost. It is much more similar to aerobic compost. Healthy soil is aerated (this part is aerobic) but the crumbs of soil are anaerobic on the inside. Because there is enough moisture to hold small crumbs together. If it gets too dry, you get fully oxidized, pale white desert soil with loose-grains and no crumb structure. If it gets too wet, you get swamp/underwater soil, with no aerated tunnels, which most of our food crops will rot in.

[@davidka8345]

@@AKu-xs5vg no, it's not swamp rotting, it's anaerobic fermentation with facultative aerobic lactic acid bacteria (LAB). It has a long tradition in East Asia and has proven health benefits like kimchi and other LAB fermentation as well. Bokashi typically uses a LAB starter to prevent, that fermentation goes in a wrong direction. That's the blind spot many people don't get.

[@R1chiesART]

This whole series has turned on its head 180%!!. One minute its this, the next minute that?. Have you forgot the principle objectives of your first series?. The parameters of your directives?. Its wonderful putting as many arguments together to fulfil your narrative, but conflicting them to cover every potential so you don't leave a barn door open is not very conclusive...

[@bobthrasher8226]

If manure is oxidizing then why is permaculture with animals integrated effective?

[@ProjectHomeGrown]

I would assume that all depends on, how much manure, what is the source of the manure and what the livestock was fed, as that would directly have an effect on the composition of the manure. Also one would assume that if they are applying good permaculture practice they have a good balance reducing excessive tilling, using cover crops, applying no till fundamentals where practical and enhancing soil micro biome with adequate organic matter. With regards to your question, I don't think one thing in this case manure fertilizer on its own is a problem but more a question of stacking of different factors skewing to one side oxidizing upon oxidizing.

[@timshirk6261]

The Bison on the prairie did not have all the salt in there manure plus they deposited it on soil that has a lot of carbon in it and then the dung Beatles converted to a more stable form.

[@davidka8345]

Manure includes biology. Rotting in anaerobic conditions kills the good microorganisms and makes it oxidizing. But good conditions help to steer the process in a beneficial direction. That's what is aimed in permaculture, regenerate agriculture or holistic planed grazing.

[@ttanne7838]

FRANK : 45:00 air is 78 % Nitrogen

[@Pneuma40]

Good presentation. Analogy of salt in a cut not correct....salt is not burning by oxidation, it is desiccating cells by osmosis. This can happen to root hairs with too much salt in the soil. Mechanism for release of trace minerals...........chelates ?

[@Anythingforfreedom]

Do I really need to listen to the entire lecture to find the answer to this question?

[@patrickday4206]

Is this part of why in the Bible the soil was rested ever 7 years?

[@peterclark6290]

What crops are these? Are they reliant on those minerals? This sounds like Agribusiness and Agronomists trying to sustain their position. Starting with a picture with bare soil was the giveaway; that book-learned fools were nearby. Regenerative Agriculture is the future, where Nature (perhaps maxed just a little by human intervention) determines the health of the crop and the soil.

[@klauskarpfen9039]

19:25 " ... these aerobic bacteria ... are the disease enhancing bacteria ... they are oxidizers and they are dependant ... on the presence of oxidized manganese ... " - huh - they need oxidized manganese to do what? To oxidize it? Very badly explained and not at all convincing. If you're an "oxidizer" you need a reduced form to exert your oxidizing capacities on it.

[@jimmartindale]

Disappointed in John's response to the question re. soil aeration value. John fails to grasp the reality of micro-erosion impact and its origins. As long as water moves downward in the soil profile the phenomenon of micro-erosion will not cease. The result of micro-erosion which is the downward transport and lodging of silt soil particles in the macropores thereby slowing percolation and in due season limiting infiltration. To coin a phrase. when perc goes to zero, infiltration of zero is soon to follow. True aeration technology addresses percolation as well as infiltration. As long as water traverses the soil profile, the need to address the "density layer" produced by a concentration or accumulation of silt-sized soil particles, then the need to render that layer ineffective at reducing the rate of percolation is going to be required. This tillage operation if properly rendered will continue to perform an essential function which will profoundly enhance bio-redox. In the command of God to till there was never any conditions or contingencies impacting a decision to stop tilling. If silt could somehow change it's density and thereby the influence of water to transport it, then John might have a point that it can be useful only as a starting point in soil regeneration.