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Re: Mycorrhizae is a secret weapon

Prairie soils decline mostly because of the burnup of organic matter and 
too quick release of stored nutrients. Not tilling -- as detailed in my 
book WEEDLESS GARDENING -- helps preserve organic matter. Any farming or 
gardening is to some degree unnatural, and nutrients lost must be 
replaced. Compost and "natural" fertilizers are one way to replace lost 
nutrients; anhydrous ammonia is another. That said, chemical fertilizers 
do have their drawbacks -- no organic matter, leaching, and nutrients 
not released into soil solution in synch with plant growth. Mycorrhiza 
alone could not support agriculture. The nutrient that is most 
evanescent and needed usually in greatest amounts is nitrogen, which 
mycorrhizae have little effect on. Their greatest effect is on 
nutrients, such as P, that are only slowly mobile in the soil.

Doreen Howard wrote:

>What Lee Reich writes is very true.  Many mycorrhizae strains are present in
>good soil, and they are specific to certain plants.  Those that enhance
>pines, for instance, won't do a thing for most vegetables.  The VAM that
>most commercial purveyors sell is specific to many vegetables, but don't do
>a thing for lettuce, the mustards, palms or many monocots.  And, yes most
>soil has mycorrhizae naturally, but unfortunately, many lawns, gardens and
>tree plantings have been deluged with high nitrogen and phosphorous
>fertilizers which have destroyed the nature soil balance and killed
>mycorrhizal fungi.  A good example of this is virgin prairie that supports a
>host of plants easily.  The prairie is plowed and planted.  The first few
>years of crops are good, but the yields decline.  Then fertilizer is spread
>on the fields, and it has to be applied every year, many times in increasing
>doses to equal earlier yields.  If the field has been left alone, compost
>and other natural fertilizer been applied, the never-ending-fertilizer
>circus could be avoided, because the mycorrhizae and other beneficial
>microbes would be alive.  I cringe every time I see an anhydrous ammonia
>tanker along side of prairie fields in IL and IA .
>End of my rant for the day,
>Doreen Howard
>
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