woman turning compost

Soil Social: Quorum Sensing, Part 1

Sunrise is approaching. You grab your morning cup of coffee and head out to your vegetable plot. As you hold your warm mug laced between your fingers, you muse and strategize about the day’s tasks. It is that time, just at first light, that the wind is dead calm, the nightly bug chatter has ended, it is still too early for the birds to start their musical chirping, and the rooster has yet to sound the alarm. You have come to love these special few minutes of each day for their intense vacuum silence. In between sips, you hear a buzz that you haven’t heard before. It is coming from the soil beneath the tomato and squash plants. The microbiology in your soil is having a meeting.  
Darron Gaus
Mycorrhizae
Worm castings are hand-sorted and fresh vermicompost is screened
hands holding soil in crop field

Episode 260. Rising Fertilizer Costs: Look to History for Answers 

In this episode of Voices from the Field, NCAT Specialists Nina…
hands holding biochar from various feedstocks