Headline : How Do We Grow Mycorrhizal Colonization?

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At Understanding Ag, we have looked at tens of thousands of soil test results that combine the Haney, PLFA, and TND (Total Nutrient Digestion) tests. The Haney Test is similar to a traditional soil test that also supplies us with a 30,000-foot view of soil health by testing for soil microbial respiration, organic carbon fraction (WEOC), microbially active carbon (MAC), and the carbon to nitrogen ratio (C:N). The PLFA test is a pure soil biology test that looks at parameters such as total living microbial biomass, total bacteria, total fungi, mycorrhizal fungi, saprophytic fungi, and protozoa. The TND test provides a look at the complete mineral composition of the soil at sampling depth.

This article is not going to go into detail about these tests and how to interpret them. Rather, I will use the results from tens of thousands of these tests over the breath and depth of North America to show what the vast majority of our agronomic soils are missing. This includes both cropland and pastureland.

Time after time, when we look at the results of this suite of soil tests, we find one thing in common, all too often. The vast majority of our soils are deficient in one thing. Not nitrogen, not phosphorus, not calcium, not another element (B, Cu, Zn, Mn, Mg, Al, etc.). Not what we would suspect is the “usual” culprit. As a matter of fact, the deficiency is not an element (mineral) at all. It is not organic matter or carbon. It is actually a soil microorganism: mycorrhizal fungi.

That’s right. The biggest deficiency that we see in almost all cropland and pastureland we have tested is a microbial species that plays a very large role in soil health. Mycorrhizal fungi are often found to comprise less than 3-4% of the total living microbial biomass in our soils. Greater than 90% of all the soil samples we look at are bacterially dominated (85 – 95% bacteria) and terribly deficient in mycorrhizal fungi (MF).

Read more from the original article on here at understandingag.com.

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