John: Hello, this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
Today I have another exciting episode for here at the second annual heirloom expo, and
there's a big sign behind me, and we're at the flowers building, and there's all kinds
of different varieties of produce, but what this episode's going to be about is my one
super favorite food.
I'm at the heirloom expo, where they're teaching some really cool cutting edge stuff that you
guys have probably not heard anywhere else, so let's head over to that booth and find
out what they're sharing today.
Now we're at the booth of biologic systems, and this is my favorite booth by far of the
whole heirloom expo.
Many people are just walking by it, but they don't really know what's here, but I do.
If you're a previous viewer, then you saw a few episodes ago when I went to a place
in Portland where they're basically supersizing their plant grow with woodchips.
What do I find now in a bag?
This is actually California hummus.
This is woodchips that have been decomposed basically with a fungus dominant composting.
Most composting is actually high heat for fast turnaround, but they don't have the special
benefits that this does.
This is basically just the woodchips compost that you could buy if you don't have a lot
of land space, to just dump woodchips and let it happen naturally over 3-5 years.
I mean, check this stuff out.
This stuff just look like that same black gold that I saw in that Portland garden where
they were supercharging, supersizing, and supergrowing that dinosaur kale.
If you haven't seen that episode check a couple episodes back to see that episode.
I'm really glad they have this stuff here, and what we're goanna do is we're goanna do
and talk to some of the guys here and learn more about the hummus, what it is, and how
it works to supercharge your plant growth.
John: Now we're here with Ian from biologic systems, and I, you know, want to ask you
a couple questions.
What is soil hummus, and how does it get these pumpkins to grow really big and that dinosaur
kale I saw in another garden to grow really big?
I mean, what's going on?
Ian: Well, soil hummus is the component of soil that microbes have actually broken down
dead organic matter to create.
So, if you think about the forest floor, if you're out walking it the forest, every year
those trees are dropping all of their leaves down on the ground, leaving their litter down
on the soil.
Well, fungi, down in the soil, have evolved to break that litter material down and decompose
it into what's called soil hummus.
So, a healthy soil contains billions of microorganisms in every teaspoon of it, and those organisms
work to help these plants grow so big.
So, the world record giant pumpkin growers have figured this out, and they actually grow
better, bigger pumpkins based on an organic method utilizing soil hummus, adding compost
products in their soil to help increase the soil hummus level, and as you can see they're
getting better results by using that, than by using substitute products.
So, soil hummus, you want to think of it as this ecosystem with thousands of different
types of microorganisms that are working together and working symbiotically with the plant to
help to built more topsoil.
So, when you look at our conventional soil systems, what they're really lacking is this
soil hummus.
They've applied chemicals, they've used tillage, which has killed off all this biodiversity
of these microbes, and not the plants have no microbes growing with them, and so now
they have no immune system.
So, you see all the disease or pests, etc.
So, the best grower in the world, looking at large-scale farmers, looking at giant pumpkin
growers, they're all learning that they're goanna get better results by learning to use
organic methods.
John: Wow.
See, I've been telling you guys for the longest time, work on building your soils.
This is a new subject matter that I've been learning about, and we're goanna head over
to the booth and learn more about that food soil web, and talk about how it can help you
grow monster-sized pumpkins, monster-sized dinosaur kale, and even monster-sized tomatoes.
Now we're here with Ian at their booth, and we're goanna go over what the soil food web
is.
So, Ian, what is a soil food web and how does it contribute to healthy plants?
Ian: So, the soil food web is the term used to describe the whole community of microorganisms
that live in the soil, and there's 4 different types of organisms.
There's bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes.
So, a single of teaspoon of soil will have billions of different organisms in there.
The soil food web is a term that is used to describe how they relate to one another.
So, in nature you have plants that grow, and they eventually die.
When they die they leave the dead material laying on the surface of the soil, and that's
where the bacteria and fungi come in first, and they gobble up all that dead plant material
and so all the nutrients that are in that plant now become bacteria or fungi.
Well, in order to make those nutrients available to plants once again, it requires soil predators.
So, in the soil there are predators just like in the ocean, where you have sharks as a predator,
or in a pasture system, you have wolves as a predator.
Well, in the soil, there's predators, too.
In the soil, the predators are nematodes and protozoa.
So, what they do is all day long they eat away at that bacteria and fungi, and they're
literally pooping out all of the nutrients that were held in that bacteria and fungi
as available nutrients that the plant can once again take up.
So, you have this constant process going on, where the microbes are making nutrients available
for the plant that the plant can uptake, the plant is dying, and the microbes are eating
the plant and turning it back into stable soil use.
John: So, what's this diagram you got here?
Can you go over this for everybody?
Ian: Absolutely.
So, on the diagram, this shows how you have plants that grow using sunlight, and eventually
that plant dies, so you have dead organic matter, or your litter layer laying on the
surface of the soil.
Fungi and bacteria come in and eat that dead material, and so now all the nutrients that
were in the plants and in the dead plants are not transferred to the bacteria and fungi.
Those bacteria and fungi are now consumed by the soil predators, primarily the nematodes
and protozoa that are eating the bacteria and fungi, releasing the nutrients back into
plant available form.
So, for example, you have nitrogen that's now stored in the dead plant, the bacteria
is eating the dead plant, nitrogen is now turning in to the bacterial biomass, and when
that protozoa eats that bacteria, it's pooping out all that nitrogen in the form of ammonium,
NH4, which is plant available soluble nitrogen.
So, if you've got 100000 protozoa in a gram of your soil, which is common in healthy organic
soil, those protozoa can produce more nitrogen than your plant can possible take up.
So, this is how we're seeing even in a lot of the large scale agricultural context we're
working in, we can reduce the fertilizer put on these farms by up to 50%, because we're
using the microbes to make the majority of the fertilizer for the plants on the farm
in the soil.
John: Wow.
So, that's really cool man.
So, I know you have like a slide and a high-powered microscope.
Can you show us what that looks like under a high-powered microscope?
Ian: We're looking at here on the screen today a nematode; one of the 4 types of microorganisms,
and this particular nematode is called a bacterial feeding nematode.
So, in healthy soil, n every teaspoon of that soil, you're going to have hundreds of these
tiny little nematodes, and what this guy is doing is he's eating bacteria as we're watching
him right here is the soil.
The image that we're looking at is a little bit of soil that we put under the microscope
that's at 400x magnification.
This is about a 400th of a drop of liquefied soil.
So, this little nematode here is eating all these bacteria, and you can see all the tiny
little single-celled bacteria swimming around in the background.
Well, this nematode is goanna eat 50000 of those bacteria every day, and as he eats each
one of those bacteria, he's pooping out plant-available nitrogen.
That's fertilizer for your plants.
So, as we build these beneficial organisms up to really high levels in the soil, we can
then be producing fertilizer for the plant without having to use any inputs at all.
John: So you explained how the process worked, but you know, how does the California hummus,
where does this come in, what does this do exactly?
Ian: Well, California hummus is a composted material that's made from 100% woody material.
So, if you work in a tree service company, to utilize all the waste, al the woodchips
they bring back on a daily basis, they put in a 3-year composting process that's allow
temperature composting method that really allows all these fungi and nematodes and protozoa
to grow.
Most commercially produced compost is made at a very high temperature where they're turning
the piles almost every day, and in that really hot temperature where they're turning the
piles constantly, really the only microorganism that grows in that is bacteria.
Well, what we want to grow in our hummus is the nematodes, protozoa, which are beneficial.
So, this material right here, in a teaspoon of this stuff, there's over 10000 species
of microorganisms.
So, what you can do at home, is take this and you can make it into a tea by taking a
little sock or a t-shirt, putting it inside of there, take a garbage can full of water,
extract the composts into the water, and now you've got 30-50 gallons of the tea that you
can take a spread around to all of your garden, your lawn, spray it onto your houseplants,
and it's going to work to restore the microorganisms into your plant growing
system, and help the plants grow better, help them uptake nutrients, help prevent disease.
It's basically working to rebuilds the immune system of that plant, just like we have an
immune system.
Our immune system is made of microorganisms just like the plant, so they're really not
much different than us.
In order to thrive and be healthy, they need those whole community of microorganisms.
John: Wow.
That's totally amazing.
Yea, I know my viewer may want this now.
I mean, this is pretty much what powered that garden in Portland you saw.
It supercharged the dinosaur kale, it supercharged the pumpkins, and it can supercharge your
garden, too.
You guys just need to get this stuff.
So, Ian, how can people get a hold of this stuff?
Ian: Well, you can buy from our company, it's Ecologic Systems, or you can find us online
at biologicsystemsusa.com John: Awesome, Ian, thank you so much for
sharing with us today.
So, hopefully you guys now know how to supercharge your plant growth with the California hummus.
I'm definitely going to start using this now, and I'm even going to have larger plants than
before and hopefully even than my friends in Portland, Once again, my name is John Kohler
with growingyourgreens.com.
We'll see you next time, and remember, keep on growing.