Believe it or not, you are not the hardest worker on your farm. Neither are these chickens. Neither are any of your other animals or any of your tools on your farm.
The hardest workers on your farm are actually the soil microbes because they don't take a break and they're actually the most important workers on your farm as well. Today, we're going to be talking about four different categories of the soil microbes. Thanks for that, Rooster.
That was perfect timing. Today we're going to be talking about four different categories of your soil microbes, how they're important, what they do, and all that type of stuff. So, this is going to be a little bit of a educational video here today.
Now, recently you've heard me talk about or you've seen me talk about a lot about compost lately, and that's what I'm uncovering right now are my compost cages. And the reason these things are so dogone important is because they grow and replicate and multiply these four categories of organisms that are so so important on your farm. They're the reason that anything grows.
They're the reason you have disease or don't have disease. They're the reason you have high yields or don't have high yields. They're the reason you have high pest pressure.
They're the reason for everything when it comes to your garden, your farm, your homestead, all of that. And today, we're going to be getting into it. But quite literally, compost can make or break your farm.
If you're not making it, it can break it. And if you are making it, it can absolutely make everything blow up and thrive with less effort on your end. And the smallest one that we have and the building block and the foundation of everything else is going to be our bacteria.
Now, the bacteria can be good guys or bad guys. We have aerobic bacteria, we have facultative bacteria, and then we have anorobic bacteria. A lot of the disease-causing bacteria is all anorobic, which is part of the reason we want to focus on having aerobic healthy soils, aerobic, healthy uh compost and and stuff like that.
If you think about think about it in the same way you do your, you know, your gut microbiome or even your body, the more you can increase the oxygen in your body, the less likely you are to get sick, the less likely you are to get cancer, stuff like that. Same thing in the soil. The more aerobic, the more oxygen you can pump into the soil, the better everything is going to be.
Now, your bacteria are your first responders. We'll call them first responders. They're going to be the first ones to interact with plants when there's nothing else in the soil.
They're also going to be the first ones to show up in the soil once you're bringing your soil back to life or if you just leave it to to nature to take care of. But they're the also one of the ones that directly interact with your plants. Imagine you have a plant right here, right?
The plant shoots down sugars into the soil or exidates. That's the scientific term for it. Uh but sugars in down into the soil that feed the bacteria.
Now with that sugar comes a grocery list. Like this is what the bacteria has to go derive. This is what the plant needs that the bacteria has to get in exchange for that sugar.
And now that bacteria can release enzymes into the soil. It'll glue itself to inorganic material and organic material as well. But things like your sand, silts, clays, this is how bacteria can turn, you know, clay into like a nice crumb structure or silt into a nice crumb structure or even sand into a nice crumb structure.
It'll glue itself to that inorganic material, start releasing enzymes and depending on what it needs to extract will adjust the enzyme and adjust the pH of the uh enzyme that it's releasing. It'll that's where your pH in your soil comes from. Now, here's the kicker.
This is part of the reason I don't test pH in the soil, cuz the pH right here can be light years different than the pH literally right here. How am I going to get an accurate understanding of what the pH is in the soil if it's literally changing from crumb to crumb? The pH is changing cuz each bacteria is getting a different either it could get the same, but it's getting slightly different recipes or grocery lists from the plants.
So first guy bacteria, there's good guys, there's in between guys and then there's bad guys. Now they also decompose uh softer organic material and stuff like that. So think of like manurses.
It'll start decomposing that some like grasses uh plant matter like the just think of like softer organic matter. That's what bacteria is really good at decomposing as well or breaking down as well as your sand silts and clays. So, they're the first responder, but keep in mind, they can't make that transaction back to the plant.
So, the the bacteria went and got what's on the grocery list. It just can't deliver that directly to the plant unless it's like an actobacteria, which is a facultative bacteria. Um, that's in the in between stage.
And whenever you're flipping compost and you see that white stuff in the center, that's a whole lot of actobacteria. It thrives in that in between stage between aerobic and anorobic. important for brascas, but not much else, or at least that we've discovered so far.
Bacteria can't make that direct transaction back to the plant. That's where some of these other characters come into play. And now we'll get into some of the other characters.
The next one that we're going to talk about actually works in tandem with the bacteria, and that is the fungi. Now, you've heard me talk about the bacteria to fungi ratio before, or the FB ratio, fungi to bacteria ratio before. Now, ideally, your ratio in a garden would be about 1:1.
So, for every, and this is by volume, but for every one bacteria, you have one fungi by volume, not like a direct one for one as far as the count goes. Um, cuz fungi can be well, they are way bigger than your bacteria and stuff. In fact, you use your smallest bacteria that you can find to actually measure the width of your particular fungi that you're looking at underneath the microscope.
Um, speaking of microscope, if you want your soil tested and you want to know what biology is in your soil, hit me up. Uh, there's an email down below in your description box. Check that out, click that, send me a send me an email saying you want your soil tested and, uh, we'll get that squared away for you, as well as a consultation.
If you want to come out and want me to come up with an idea or a design or an order of operations for your property, hit up the email down below. But continuing on with this, your fungi basically works in tandem with your bacteria and it does what your bacteria can't. So, previously I mentioned that your fungi or that your bacteria decomposes like softer, greener organic matter.
Uh like this little leaf right here is a good example of that. Your fungi has the ability of breaking down thicker, harder, woodier species of organic matter in your soil, which is a little bit more complex. you're receiving a whole lot more complex nutrients and it's using way more complex like humic fulvic acids, enzymes and stuff like that to break down that woody material.
Now, another cool thing about fungi is that it's basically the communicator and the transport system in the soil. There's a lot of freaky things that go on when it comes to like fungi moving nutrients around along its network of uh the fungal hy and stuff like that. Um, you would think like it would take a certain amount of time for it to travel from this location, let's say, to the other side of my yard, but they've noticed that there isn't really a whole lot of time involved.
And in fact, it's kind of an impossible amount of time involved and it's almost instantaneous. And that's a different topic that's a little freaky topic as well, but it is the transport and communication system for your soil. Now also like a I mentioned earlier in the garden your fungal to bacteria ratio for your garden needs to be about one to one but the more woodier or more perennial your system is the higher the fungi needs to be.
For example your garden like I said 1:1 ratio. Um when it comes to your orchard it needs to be closer to like a as close to 10,000 to one as you can get. If you look at an old growth forest, their fungal to bacteria ratio is about 10,000 to one.
So anywhere in between there, like if you're doing fruits and bushes and vines and stuff like that, about 25 to1. Uh if you're doing an orchard system, about 100 to1. If you're trying to get like a very very secure old growth system type forest floor, then you need to get up to 10,000 to1.
And to determine those ratios, you got to get a soil test done. So just just keep that in mind. But fungi and bacteria come together like butt cheeks and they be the shisnet in the soil.
They're the backbone of everything else. Now unlike uh bacteria, fungi can make that direct input to the plant. Like it can bring the nutrients directly back to the plant.
So that's cool. Now moving on to the next character. We're getting bigger and bigger.
Fungi is the communicator and the transport system. The logistics of the whole thing. Next we have the prozzoa which is like the next size up.
If the bacteria are gazelle the we'll call the prozzoa like jackals. They're not quite lions yet. We'll talk about the lions in a minute but they're like the jackals and the hyenas and stuff.
Prozzoa. There's a couple of different prozzoa that I look at for look out for under a microscope. That's the ciliates the fleella and the uh amiebas.
Now the ciliates typically not a good indication. They usually thrive in lower oxygen soils and we want as much oxygen in the soil as possible. But they go through the prozoa go through and they eat a ton of bacteria.
So I was saying before that the bacteria can't make that direct nutrient transaction with the plants. They have to be eaten by their predator first and then once they get pooped out then it benefits the plants in the surrounding area. Then the plants can then soak up the nutrients through the roots and then it benefits the plants.
Um, but we have like amieba. Those can be there's a couple of different types of amoeba. Actually, a bunch of different types of amieba.
And they're super ornate. Some of them have a shell, testate amoeba. Some of them don't have shells, naked amoeba.
If you've ever seen that show or movie Osmosis Jones, then you've seen amoeba. But amieba are awesome. They eat thousands of bacteria every single day.
Um, the fleella and the ciliates, they also eat thousands of bacteria in the day. Ciliates move super super fast. Fleella, they're just kind of chilling.
They're bumbling along and just kind of chilling. But ciliates are actually hard to like get them to stop so you can look at them underneath the microscope. The fleella, you notice them based on their characteristics of movement.
Cilates are super fast. Fleella are just kind of bumbling along. Uh amoeba, they stand out like a store thumb, unless it's like a naked amoeba, then you have to look a little bit closer to actually see them.
But the testate uh amoeba, the shells are super ornate. They're really really cool looking. But you need about 10,000 of these guys.
Prozzoa, you need about 10,000 of these guys per gram just to get the appropriate nutrient cycling going and make sure your plants have whatever they need on demand basically. And now we're getting into the lions or the upper management. Those are the nematodeses.
Actually, no, they're not even really the lions, but we're getting closer to lion. They are kind of the lions. We'll call them lines as far as like what you can't see the uh microscopic soil biology because you can see earthworms and those are really the top dogs of the soil.
But nematodes, we have bacteria feeding nematodes, we have fungal feeding nematodes, we have uh omnivorous eating nematodes, we have switchers, we have root feeders. There are some good guys and then there also some bad guys. But these nematodeses basically are like that big old worm from Dune or something or like uh Star Wars that big old sand worm.
That's basically a nematode. And they are very very big. You can see them.
I mean some of them the nematodeses you can almost see um without a microscopes like some of the omnivorous nematodeses uh or some of the ones that actually eat other nematodes you can almost see them without a microscope. But those are the first guys I look at underneath the microscope cuz I can use the 10x lens and I scan through the entire slide and I see them, you know, typically moving them around. In fact, I'll go ahead and show a video that I recorded uh doing a soil test just yesterday actually.
Um from my buddy H Sinclair, shout out to you, dude. Uh but yeah, nematodes, they are like the lions of the soil. They go through, depending on what kind they are, they go through and they eat a lot of those uh bacteria, a lot of the fungi, and they really really get that nutrient cycling going.
Those are super super important. Not every nematode is good, and not every nematode is bad. I've noticed on like on like online forums and YouTube videos and stuff like that, everybody focuses on the root feeding nematodes.
Those are some of the bad guys. There's also switchers. Uh like the switchers are root feeding nematodes that can eat fungi if they're available, but if they're not available, they'll go back to eating roots.
So they're just, you know, they're fickle. Um but they go back and forth. They eat fungi whenever they can and then they'll eat roots whenever they can.
Um but everybody focuses on the root feeding nematodes. Now, also I've noticed in a lot of bagged soil, now that you know what you know about the soil food web, I've noticed in a lot of bagged soil and a lot of like landscape yard compost and stuff like that, which heads up is all crap. It's all bad.
Um, but a lot of people do a nematode extract in a spray right before packaging and bagging and then they send it off. Well, knowing what you know, that's pretty useless. If the nematode has nothing to eat, then it's going to die.
It's going to go dormant and it's going to go back into its spore and it's not creating that nutrient cycling or anything. So that's why the entire foil soil food web is important by by fostering your soil microbes and everything. A lot of your diseases go away.
They will glue themselves to the surface of plants and actually provide like a force field around your plant so pests can't bother them. A lot of, like I just said, a lot of animal diseases go away because the soil does not foster that environment and stuff like that. So, by making compost, I'm growing those organisms.
And as long as I don't create anorobic environments or compaction, once I apply this to the soil, it's a permanent fix. It might take about three applications. Worst case scenario, it'll take three applications all within the same season.
But as long as I, like I said, as long as I don't create compaction or anorobic conditions, it is a permanent fix. This is why compared to this, like KN&F farming or Jadam or any of that stuff or even like going to the grocery store or not the grocery store, but the farm store and buying fertilizer, it's why none of that makes sense because all of that still requires you to be involved in the fertilization of those plants. The option, the other option is to foster the microbes, get them in place, keep a good condition for them, and they will provide whatever your plant needs on demand.
You will have bumper crops. You will have more gradea crops, the ones that you can sell whole directly to the consumer. You will have less issues with your animals.
You can get a little bit lazy on your grazing practices. Even there's examples of that over in I think Nebraska and then also South Africa of people applying this to their soils and they're not even grazing correctly. Um you have higher quality milk.
You will have higher quality eggs. You will have higher quality everything and more bigger yields than everybody else just by fostering the microbes and making sure you have as many of the good guys as freaking possible. Now, if you still don't believe me, just give it one year of trying it.
Now, once you go this way, you can't go back to the Kyber Bosch nutri uh nitrogen fertilizers anymore. That's going to create an anorobic environment because you're applying salts to the soil. Um, and that's just bad.
And you also have to keep the soil covered as well cuz we want to reduce compaction and inhibit anorobic conditions. So, this is just like a crash course in soil microbes and everything. Hopefully, you guys found this interesting.
If you did find it interesting, then I might do some more individual videos on each category and go more in depth of these guys. But thank you guys so much for watching. If you need a soil test, hit up the email down below.
If you need a consultation, hit up the email down below. Um, thank you guys so much for watching and until next time, we'll see you.
