“How do we act on the fact that we are more ignorant than knowledgeable? Embrace the arrangements that have shaken down in the long evolutionary process and try to mimic them, ever mindful that human cleverness must remain subordinate to nature’s wisdom.” - Wes Jackson, co-founder and President Emeritus of The Land Institute

In September I had the pleasure of attending The Land Institute’s Prairie Festival in Salina, KS. The ecologists and plant scientists there are working to domesticate wild perennial plants and perennialize existing annual grains. Perennial crop polycultures will conserve soil and water, sequester more carbon dioxide, and require less fossil fuels/synthetic inputs. Learn more at PBS News Hour’s “How a new grain could help combat climate change.”

Mycorrhizal fungi form a filamentous body called a mycelium. This is composed of branching threads called hyphae that grow through and across substrates to access food resources, secreting enzymes that catalyze chemical reactions and break down complex matter into simple compounds, which can then be absorbed back through the cell wall. The reach of the mycelium of a single fungus beyond the root system effectively enlarges the surface-absorbing area of the plant partner by ten to one hundred times. The uptake of water and nutrients (such as phosphorous and zinc) by the fungus is delivered to the root by means of an internal mycelium in exchange for simple sugars and synthesized compounds from the plant. This fuels the growth of both partners. Certain mycorrhizal fungi can be seen on tree roots, yet more often than not, symbiotic species on the majority of vascular plants will be invisible to the naked eye. The fineness of hyphae in comparison with the relatively blunt hairs on feeder roots reveals how mycorrhizal fungi can access diverse nutrient niches....Beneath the imprint of one's foot, extending down into the soil but mostly meandering nearer the surface, are 300 miles of fungal hyphae.

Michael Phillips, p. 6-7 Mycorrhizal Planet: How Symbiotic Fungi Work with Roots to Support Plant Health and Build Soil Fertility published by Chelsea Green Publishing

Garden Notes - Sept 2019

Today I planted a mix of Texas wildflower seeds from Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and seedsource.com - Texas bluebonnet, Mexican Hat, Prairie Coneflower, Black-Eyed Susan, Firewheel, Lemon Mint, Plains Coreopsis and Clasping Coneflower.

Ramial Chipped Wood

This fall I’m going to try a ramial chipped wood mulch bed. Ramial wood = young branches that have sprouted within the past year. The young branches are the richest part of the tree (10 times as nutrient rich as the trunk or wood from larger branches, according to the first video later in this post.)

RWC application is recommended during end of autumn, beginning of winter, and during winter. If the branches sit around after being cut for more than 3 months, the mulch would just be considered compost, and would no longer qualify as RCW. Ramial chipped wood is a blanket for the soil (soil cover) and promotes fungal growth. Chipping the young branches allows for more fungi development, giving fungi an opening. They cannot penetrate the bark.

Below are two videos on ramial mulch.

1) Humification and Ramial Wood Chips - this video has a lot of useful information and features Michael Phillips. He explains that minerals are stored in the cambium, and that of the cambium cells, 75% of minerals are stored in the smaller portions of the tree, while only 25% of minerals are stored in cambium cells in the tree trunk. “A greater proportion of cambium, buds and twigs in coarse chippings from small wood offer healthy nutrition that gets “banked” as long term humus”.

White rot fungi (a certain group of decomposition fungi that can break down the lignins in hardwood) and mycorrhiza make these nutrients available to a wide range of plants. The Carbon to Nitrogen ratio in the smaller parts of the tree range from 40:1 to 170:1 C:N - this is a sweet spot for fungi. In contrast, sawdust from the larger parts of trees can tie up/bind to nitrogen due to a C:N ratio as high as 700:1.

Michael also mentions that hardwood is better because white rot fungi will eat hardwood, and brown rot fungi is associated with softwood. He is the author of Mycorrhizal Planet: How Symbiotic Fungi Work with Roots to Support Plant Health and Build Soil Fertility, published by Chelsea Green Publishing.

2) Understanding rcw (ramial chipped wood) - In the words of Gilles Lemieux (1952-2009) “we’re copy-pasting forest soil into agricultural soil, minus the trees.” “RCW allows flora and fauna within the soil to flourish, whilst being protected from frost. Within the soil, fungi can continue growing at 20 Farenheit.”

“A small branch is supple and can almost be bent into a circle. Lignin that’s not fully formed means it’s a great environment for fungi to grow.”

A lot of research into RCW has been done through Laval University in Québec. 150-160% increase in productivity was found in one study. Using ramial mulch, 80% percent less water was needed on a farm in France. Fifty percent of water was saved in a Saharan project.

The video recommends a 1x1 meter area with 3-4″ thickness of RCW. Branches pruned off of a tree can be used. For a 100 square foot garden, 3 meters cubed of RCW coverings are suggested.

Bees diverged from wasps more than 100 million years ago and are simply wasps that went vegetarian. The bees' waspy ancestors (and their current wasp cousins) provided animals, living or dead, for their young to eat. Bees switched to feeding their babes plant pollen---easy to find and it doesn't fight back. Pollen is rich in proteins, amino acids, and fats, with some carbs thrown in as well.

Our Native Bees, by Paige Embry

Although angiosperms as a group evolved the payment plan to get animals to cart their pollen around, not every angiosperm works that way. Some are self-pollinated or pollinated by wind, but somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety percent of all angiosperms are thought to receive pollination services from animals ranging from lemurs, bats, and birds to moths, beetles, and flies. But it is the bees that have evolved to be the star pollinators. The payment the angiosperms supply these pollinators with is nectar, a delicious, energy-laden carbohydrate drink. For bees they also provide those packets of baby food---pollen.  [...] Many of the bees that do collect pollen have special areas on their body for storing pollen and special devices on their legs for grooming pollen into these storage areas. Many bees have gotten hairier than their wasp ancestors, the better for pollen to glom onto them. When they fly, bees build up a slight positive electrostatic charge that sucks negatively charged pollen grains onto them when they land on flowers. Bees and pollen are made for each other.

Our Native Bees by Paige Embry http://www.timberpress.com/books/our_native_bees/embry/9781604697698

Jun Aizaki and his team grew gourds inside 3D printed moulds, creating a prototype disposable cup they call HyO (name influenced by the Japanese word for gourd: hyōtan | 瓢箪, 瓢簞). Billions of single-use coffee cups are disposed every day. "While paper in itself is recyclable, paper cups are lined with polyethylene to make them waterproof. This makes cups difficult to recycle, something conventional recycling plants can’t handle. As a result, the vast majority of coffee cups ends up on the landfill." Creating the gourd cup is slow going - gourds take about 100 days to mature. The design team: https://www.instagram.com/creme.design/

“Aerial-root mucilage that hosts nitrogen-fixing microbes” 

“For thousands of years, people from Sierra Mixe, a mountainous region in southern Mexico, have been cultivating an unusual variety of giant corn. They grow the crop on soils that are poor in nitrogen—an essential nutrient—and they barely use any additional fertilizer. And yet, their corn towers over conventional varieties, reaching heights of more than 16 feet.  A team of researchers led by Alan Bennett from UC Davis has shown that the secret of the corn’s success lies in its aerial roots—necklaces of finger-sized, rhubarb-red tubes that encircle the stem. These roots drip with a thick, clear, glistening mucus that’s loaded with bacteria. Thanks to these microbes, the corn can fertilize itself by pulling nitrogen directly from the surrounding air.”

Notes from this talk: “Mushrooms are very fast in their growth and produce strong antibiotics.” ... “I propose ...[ ]... that the sequence of microbes that occurs on rotting mushrooms are essential for the health of the forest. They give rise to the trees that create the debris field that feed the mycelium." ...."In a single cubic inch of soil, there can be more than 8 miles of these cells" ... “mycelium are microfiltration membranes” ... “We exhale carbon dioxide, so does mycelium. We inhale oxygen. Mycelium also inhales oxygen" ... “These are essentially externalized stomachs and lungs, and I present to you the concept that these are extended neurological membranes." ... “And these cavities, these micro-cavities form, and as they fuse soils, they absorb water, these are little wells. And inside these wells, the microbial communities begin to form, and so, the spongy soil not only resists erosion, but sets up a microbial universe that gives rise to a plurality of other organisms."

Very informative article from  Sharondale Farm in Virginia about the various ways you can grow oyster mushrooms. “You can even grow oyster mushrooms on “waste” products of our everyday lives, including:  coffee grinds, cardboard, and old cotton clothes.”

Garden notes June 2018

What’s growing in my garden: Small Shining Light watermelon and Danvers carrot from Seed Savers Exchange | heirloom tomatoes from The Wylde Center in Oakhurst | heirloom tomatoes, peppers, lovage, borage and calendula from Love is Love Farm in East Lake | rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium), boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) and two big leaf magnolias from Beech Hollow Farms in Lexington GA. From other places: yellow squash, Utrecht wheat (as an ornamental), Cosmos, sunflowers, a fig tree started last year from a cutting, and basil.

“Work is already underway on the idea. New Mexico has  a five-year, $1 million grant from the federal Highway Authority to research methods for boosting carbon capture along the 7,500 miles of state road in its semi-arid environment.Testing different plantings and techniques  over the past year, the state boosted carbon capture on roadsides to from 35 percent to 350 percent over areas that weren't actively managed. Native grasses produced the biggest gains, in the state's prairie regions.“

Living Filtration System, designed by a team from the University of Oregon.  

http://challenge.biomimicry.org/en/custom/gallery/view/2526 

Team Members- Casey Howard, Matthew Jorgensen, Wade Hanson, Krisztian Megyeri, Alison Lewis

Earthworms, villi in the small intestine, wetlands, and the soil/biotic cycle served as inspiration for this project for their filtration, sequestration, and symbiotic abilities.

Lead Author Dr Geraint Tarling from British Antarctic Survey says, "We've known for a long time that krill are the main food source for whales, penguins and seals, but we had no idea that their tactics to avoid being eaten could have such added benefits to the environment. By parachuting down they transport carbon which sinks ultimately to the ocean floor -- an amount equivalent to the annual emissions of 35 million cars -- and this makes these tiny animals much more important than we thought."

“In ancient Amazonia, the waste disposal method of choice was to bury and burn. Wastes were baked beneath a layer of soil. This process, known as pyrolysis, produced a charcoal soil amendment rich in carbon.” “Biochar is commonly made from waste material ranging from peanut shells to rice straw to wood scraps. During the slow baking of biomass in the near or total absence of oxygen, gas and oil separate from carbon-rich solids. The output is twofold: fuels that can be used for energy and biochar that can be used to enrich soil.When biomass decomposes on the earth’s surface, carbon and methane escape into the atmosphere. Biochar retains most of the carbon present in biomass feedstock and buries it. Rendered stable, that carbon can be held for centuries in the soil—a much-delayed return to the atmosphere.”

And another article about biochar with points from supporters and skeptics-

https://e360.yale.edu/features/refilling_the_carbon_sink_biochars_potential_and_pitfalls

Almost two decades ago, the Dutch made a national commitment to sustainable agriculture under the rallying cry “Twice as much food using half as many resources.” Since 2000, van den Borne and many of his fellow farmers have reduced dependence on water for key crops by as much as 90 percent. They’ve almost completely eliminated the use of chemical pesticides on plants in greenhouses, and since 2009 Dutch poultry and livestock producers have cut their use of antibiotics by as much as 60 percent.

Sept. 2017, National Geographic, “A Tiny Country Feeds the World” by Frank Viviano