Mycorrhizae - Your Landscape and Building Your Soil

By Michael Martin Melendrez

There are two basic problems seen in landscapes across the globe that need to be considered and corrected if we expect to ever see optimum health of society or achieve the concept of sustainability. Humus: One problem is the decline of carbon from our soils sending the carbon back into the atmosphere in the form of CO2. This problem is exemplified by the decline of top soils, or the loss of Humus on agricultural lands worldwide along with the desertification problem in the more arid regions of earth. Humus is a conglomeration of biomolecules called Humic acids that are products of soil chemistry essential for healthy and productive soils. These chemicals offer a long term bank of carbon in the soil in addition to making soil a livable terrestrial biosphere for life. The vast volume of bulk organic biomass needed to make just a tiny fraction of Humus is a daunting task and one only needs to study the life and death cycle of leaves in pristine Sugar Maple and Oak Cove forest to fully understand and appreciate this process. In recent years it has become clearer to us that much of the biomass or calorie effort that goes into the making of humus is actually coming from the mutualistic association plants have with a beneficial fungi called the Mycorrhizae. When this association is complete the plant is said to be mycorrhizal. It is during this relationship that some species of mycorrhizae will produce and shed a protein material into the soil called Glomalin. Many of the worlds top scientists now believe that Glomalin is the single largest potential bank of long term carbon that we know of. If this is true, the potential to sequester carbon into our soils reducing atmospheric CO2 is a reality. Mycorrhizae: This is our second basic problem because almost without exception constructed landscapes worldwide including farms, yards, office parks, sports fields, city parks and even long standing organic certified farms have either a complete lack of the mycorrhizae or there is not enough for plants to be at optimum health! With this deficiency we also will have a low production of the fungi produced Glomalin protein.

Mycorrhizae vesicles in a carrot root

9 Gilcrease Lane

Los Lunas, NM 87031 Ph (505) 550-3246 Fax (505) 866-7645 Web www.soilsecrets.com Email soilsecrets@aol.com

Mycorrhizae are the Root-Tip-Colonizing fungi that help plants find and harvest water and mineral nutrients from the soil. Mycorrhizae and the associated helper bacteria are the only soil microbes that legal claims of health benefits to a plant can be made as there is ample research published in over 60,000 papers found in journals of science describing and validating these claims! Published Claims of Benefits include: Improved drought tolerance, soil building properties, improved mineral nutrient uptake, improved plant nutrient content including vitamins and minerals, improved tolerance of soil diseases, improved tolerance of parasitic nematodes, improved crop yields, improved tolerance of environmental stresses. So the problems of our soils are real and common but the solution to the problem is within the grasp of our known technology. There are three (3) excellent commercial growers of mycorrhizae inoculants in North America that can provide a wide diversity of viable material for jump starting your soils. Soil Secrets LLC of Los Lunas New Mexico is one of those three and often collaborates with the other two growers when needed.

Even in the arid high desert alkaline soils of Northern Arizona, Soil Secrets can work, as seen here at Ashokala Gardens a Community Supported Agriculture - Organic Farm. Photos by Kim and Joseph Costion Distributors of Soil Secrets in Snowflake Arizona . Soil Secrets LLC 9 Gilcrease Lane Los Lunas, NM 87031 (505) 550-3246 Email: soilsecrets@aol.com Web: www.soilsecrets.com 2

Producing humus on site is a more difficult task as it requires huge quantities of gross organic matter to decay down into a tiny fraction of material we call the Humic acids. But with patience and persistence we can slowly add small amounts of viable humus to a soil and see a dramatic change in the chemical, physical and structural behavior of soils. At Soil Secrets we choose to use a form of humus that we produce in New Mexico as not only a supplement to the soil, but we also use it as a carrier for the Root-Tip-Colonizing-Mutualistic microbes including the mycorrhizae and the associated helper bacteria. This form of humus is called TerraPro and exclusive and unique product of Soil Secrets.

TerraPro humus

An amazing transformation in an arid Arizona desert, where soil goes from being so poor not a blade of grass can be found and most of the soil surface is bare, to where we have a rich dark A-horizon of humus rich top soil forming. On the next page you can see what this dry and sterile Arizona desert was turned into by using the protocol and materials of Soil Secrets. A small but rich Organic Home Farm that is feeding about 15 families with nutritious produce. All the pictures taken on the next page are of plants grown with Soil Secrets products. Soil Secrets LLC 9 Gilcrease Lane Los Lunas, NM 87031 (505) 550-3246 Email: soilsecrets@aol.com Web: www.soilsecrets.com 3

The picture on the upper left is Kims Organic Home Garden in the desert of Northern Arizona. The carrots on the upper right were grown on one of our Distributors clay soil in Taos New Mexico. The lower left image is Zia and her garlic, grown on Kims farm and the giant tomato plant is in Albuquerque New Mexico grown during a year of serious Tomato virus problems where none of the neighbors could grow tomatoes. Soil Secrets LLC 9 Gilcrease Lane Los Lunas, NM 87031 (505) 550-3246 Email: soilsecrets@aol.com Web: www.soilsecrets.com 4