{"id":128638,"date":"2025-03-12T15:11:45","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T15:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/agriculture\/can-soil-microbes-slow-climate-change\/"},"modified":"2025-03-12T15:11:45","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T15:11:45","slug":"can-soil-microbes-slow-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=128638","title":{"rendered":"Can Soil Microbes Slow Climate Change?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n
\nOne scientist has tantalizing
\nresults, but others are not convinced.<\/span><\/div>\n

\nThis article was in Scientific American online but is worthy of being more widely dispersed into the wider agricultural and soil science community.\u00a0 Worth a read!<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBy John J. Berger on March
\n26, 2019<\/span><\/div>\n
\nCan Soil Microbes Slow
\nClimate Change?<\/span><\/div>\n
\nWith global carbon emissions
\nhitting an all-time high in 2018, the world is on a trajectory that climate
\nexperts believe will lead to catastrophic warming by 2100 or before. Some of
\nthose experts say that to combat the threat, it is now imperative for society
\nto use carbon farming techniques that extract carbon dioxide from the air and
\nstore it in soils. Because so much exposed soil across the planet is used for
\nfarming, the critical question is whether scientists can find ways to store
\nmore carbon while also increasing agricultural yields.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nDavid Johnson of New Mexico
\nState University thinks they can. The recipe, he says, is to tip the soil\u2019s
\nfungal-to-bacterial ratio strongly toward the fungi. He has shown how that can
\nbe done. Yet it is not clear if techniques can be scaled up economically on
\nlarge commercial farms everywhere.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nJohnson, a trim 67-year-old
\nmicrobiologist who is as comfortable using the latest metagenomics technology
\nas he is shovelling cow manure into a composter, thinks society can only
\nmaximize carbon storage, increase soil\u2019s water-holding capacity and grow
\nplentiful crops if it restores the soil microbiome. \u201cWe currently have very
\ndegraded soils physically, chemically, but mostly biologically,\u201d he says.
\n\u201cMicrobes restore this balance.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
\nJohnson conducts precise
\nsoil-biology experiments into how to increase the capacity of agricultural
\nsystems to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. In a recently completed
\nfour-and-a-half-year field trial, Johnson planted fast-growing cover crops and
\napplied a microbe-rich solution derived from a vermiculture (worm) compost
\nproduced in a low-tech composter of his own design. The bacteria, fungi and
\nprotozoa fed a soil food web of nematodes, microarthropods and other beneficial
\norganisms.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nThrough photosynthesis, the
\ncover crops pulled CO2 from the air, sank roots deep into the earth, and
\ntowered over the land. The results were unusual\u2014and highly controversial.
\nJohnson reported a net annual increase of almost 11 metric tons of soil carbon
\nper hectare on his cropland. That\u2019s equivalent to removing about 16 metric tons
\nof carbon dioxide per acre from the atmosphere annually\u2014roughly 10 times the
\nincrease that other scientists have reported in many different soils and
\nclimates.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nJohnson ascribes these
\nimprovements, along with large increases in crop yields, to improved soil
\nhealth stemming from the application of the microbes from his vermiculture,
\nleading to an increase in the soil\u2019s fungal-to-bacterial ratio.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nProfessor Rattan Lal of Ohio
\nState University, widely regarded as a leading authority on soil carbon
\nsequestration, says he was \u201cintrigued\u201d by Johnson\u2019s outcome. \u201cI want to
\nunderstand why he\u2019s getting such exceptional results.\u201d Lal thinks that further,
\nlarger-scale trials are needed to validate Johnson\u2019s work, of course.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nJohnson is also conducting
\nmeticulous laboratory studies. They focus on the correlations among
\nfungal-to-bacterial ratios and soil health, fertility and crop productivity. He
\nreports finding increases in fungal-to-bacterial ratio, plus large increases in
\nsoil carbon and other nutrients as a result of his management practices.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nIn all this work, Johnson
\nmaintains that as the ratio of fungi to bacteria increases, the soil biome
\nbecomes more efficient in utilizing carbon and other nutrients and that the
\nsoil therefore releases less CO2 to the atmosphere. The jury is still out,
\nhowever. Although peer-reviewed soil science literature contains some
\nconfirmation, other findings in submerged, forested and subarctic
\nsoils\u2014admittedly different circumstances\u2014failed to confirm the relation.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nKeith Paustian, a professor
\nof soil and crop sciences at Colorado State University, says he has seen some
\n\u201cquite high rates of carbon accrual\u201d in degraded croplands that were converted
\nto productive perennial grass systems. But he has not seen strong evidence that
\nthe same outcome can be produced by adding microbes.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nJohnson asserts that if his
\napproach were used across agriculture internationally, the entire world\u2019s
\ncarbon output from 2016 could be stored on just 22 percent of the globe\u2019s
\narable land. He says that would provide net benefits of $500 to $600 per acre
\nrather than net costs, if credits are provided for carbon capture and related
\nbenefits are counted, such as reduced irrigation and increased soil fertility.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nTo arrive at his global
\ncarbon-capture numbers, Johnson projected results from cropland plots of three
\nto 75 acres of various soil types in five states. That is still a fairly
\nlimited sample. Henry Janzen, a research scientist at Lethbridge Research and
\nDevelopment Center in Alberta and a professor at the University of Manitoba,
\ncautions that such a projection is risky. \u201cEvery ecosystem is unique,\u201d he says.
\n\u201cA practice that elicits soil carbon gain at one site may not be effective at
\nanother. And always, the rate of carbon gain will depend on a host of
\ninteractive factors, including soil properties, previous management practices,
\nclimatic conditions and the vagaries of human whims.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
\nJanzen also points out that
\nsoils do not absorb carbon indefinitely. After some years or decades, they
\ninevitably approach a new steady state. For that reason, he says, soil carbon
\nsequestration is rarely seen as a long-term solution to increased atmospheric
\ncarbon dioxide concentrations.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nJohnson acknowledges those
\nfactors but says managing soil to improve the health of its microbial life can
\nprovide strong carbon gains before the soil\u2019s capacity levels off. He is in the
\nprocess of scaling up his experiments to try to replicate his results on even
\nlarger plots in different geographies with a variety of cover and commodity
\ncrops, \u201cto assess the impact for the rest of the world.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
\nJohnson\u2019s work is based on a
\nsomewhat different paradigm from that of most conventional soil scientists.
\nThey often seek to boost agricultural productivity in traditional ways by
\nadding fertilizer and using pesticides and herbicides as needed. This approach
\nis anathema to Johnson. He decries almost every conventional farming
\npractice\u2014ploughing, bare fallowing, and the application of herbicides,
\ninsecticides and fungicides. All these, he says, \u201cassault soil microbiota.\u201d He
\nclaims that glyphosate (sold in commercial products such as Roundup) will kill
\nAspergillus fungal species in soil. Aspergillus is often regarded as a marker
\nof fungal presence and is important in carbon and nitrogen cycling.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nAs for fertilizer, Johnson
\nbelieves he has demonstrated that microbially inoculated soil enriched with
\ntilled cover crops naturally accumulates more than enough nitrogen for vigorous
\nplant growth. (Nitrogen is the limiting nutrient in most agricultural
\nsituations.) In one of his plots where he reports having increased net primary
\nproductivity five times, the soil accumulated 770 pounds of nitrogen per acre
\nper year.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nMuch of this fixation is done
\nby free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Because a normal crop only requires
\nabout 180 pounds of nitrogen per acre, Johnson says it would be unnecessary to
\nadd artificial fertilizer to a system like this.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nAs with all of Johnson\u2019s work
\nto date, this result has appeared only in the form of reports and other \u201cgrey
\nliterature.\u201d Harold van Es, professor of soil and water management at Cornell
\nUniversity\u2019s School of Integrative Plant Science, is one of Johnson\u2019s severest
\ncritics.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n\u201cIn science, we strongly
\nbelieve that research should be subjected to peer evaluation,\u201d van Es says.
\n\u201cHis ideas should not be at all presented as scientific facts.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
\nThe fungal-to-bacterial ratio
\nis indeed important, van Es says. \u201cBut there are many ways to increase that
\nratio,\u201d not just Johnson\u2019s approach. \u201cReducing tillage has similar effects and
\nthis has been much more widely documented.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
\nAlthough Johnson has irked
\nsome soil scientists and even aroused some ire, as climate change intensifies
\nin speed and fury, many scientists believe it is important to leave no stone
\nunturned in the search for ways to limit carbon emissions quickly. Perhaps the
\nsoil\u2019s microbiome can be a powerful tool.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nJohn J. Berger is an
\nenvironmental science and policy specialist who has written numerous articles
\nand books about the environment and climate change. He is the author of Climate
\nPeril, The Intelligent Reader\u2019s Guide to the Climate Crisis.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nCrisis in the Cryosphere,
\nPart 2<\/span><\/div>\n
\nCrisis in the Cryosphere,
\nPart 1<\/span><\/div>\n

Published online here on Blogger with acknowledgments to the author and Scientific American online<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One scientist has tantalizing results, but others are not convinced. This article was in Scientific American online but is worthy of being more widely dispersed into the wider agricultural and soil science community.\u00a0 Worth a read! By John J. Berger on March 26, 2019 Can Soil Microbes Slow Climate Change? With global carbon emissions hitting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12026],"tags":[7001,12647,27806,11102,14523],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-128638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","tag-change","tag-climate","tag-microbes","tag-slow","tag-soil"],"yoast_head":"\nCan Soil Microbes Slow Climate Change? - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=128638\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can Soil Microbes Slow Climate Change? - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One scientist has tantalizing results, but others are not convinced. 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