Related Research Articles
Compost is a mixture of ingredients used as plant fertilizer and to improve soil's physical, chemical, and biological properties. It is commonly prepared by decomposing plant and food waste, recycling organic materials, and manure. The resulting mixture is rich in plant nutrients and beneficial organisms, such as bacteria, protozoa, nematodes, and fungi. Compost improves soil fertility in gardens, landscaping, horticulture, urban agriculture, and organic farming, reducing dependency on commercial chemical fertilizers. The benefits of compost include providing nutrients to crops as fertilizer, acting as a soil conditioner, increasing the humus or humic acid contents of the soil, and introducing beneficial microbes that help to suppress pathogens in the soil and reduce soil-borne diseases.
Soil science is the study of soil as a natural resource on the surface of the Earth including soil formation, classification and mapping; physical, chemical, biological, and fertility properties of soils; and these properties in relation to the use and management of soils.
Organic farming, also known as ecological farming or biological farming, is an agricultural system that uses fertilizers of organic origin such as compost manure, green manure, and bone meal and places emphasis on techniques such as crop rotation and companion planting. It originated early in the 20th century in reaction to rapidly changing farming practices. Certified organic agriculture accounts for 70 million hectares globally, with over half of that total in Australia. Biological pest control, mixed cropping, and the fostering of insect predators are encouraged. Organic standards are designed to allow the use of naturally-occurring substances while prohibiting or strictly limiting synthetic substances. For instance, naturally-occurring pesticides such as pyrethrin are permitted, while synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are generally prohibited. Synthetic substances that are allowed include, for example, copper sulfate, elemental sulfur, and veterinary drugs. Genetically modified organisms, nanomaterials, human sewage sludge, plant growth regulators, hormones, and antibiotic use in livestock husbandry are prohibited. Organic farming advocates claim advantages in sustainability, openness, self-sufficiency, autonomy and independence, health, food security, and food safety.
Sir Albert Howard was an English botanist. His academic background might have been botany. While working in India he was generally considered a pathologist; this more than likely being the reason for his consistent observations of the value of compost applications being an increase in health. Howard was the first Westerner to document and publish the Indian techniques of sustainable agriculture. After spending considerable time learning from Indian peasants and the pests present in their soil, he called these two his professors. He was a principal figure in the early organic movement. He is considered by many in the English-speaking world to have been, along with Eve Balfour, one of the key advocates of ancient Indian techniques of organic agriculture.
The department of plant and microbial biology is an academic department in the Rausser College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley. The department conducts extensive research, provides undergraduate and graduate programs, and educates students in the fields of plant and microbial sciences with 43 department faculty members.
The soil food web is the community of organisms living all or part of their lives in the soil. It describes a complex living system in the soil and how it interacts with the environment, plants, and animals.
Soil biology is the study of microbial and faunal activity and ecology in soil. Soil life, soil biota, soil fauna, or edaphon is a collective term that encompasses all organisms that spend a significant portion of their life cycle within a soil profile, or at the soil-litter interface. These organisms include earthworms, nematodes, protozoa, fungi, bacteria, different arthropods, as well as some reptiles, and species of burrowing mammals like gophers, moles and prairie dogs. Soil biology plays a vital role in determining many soil characteristics. The decomposition of organic matter by soil organisms has an immense influence on soil fertility, plant growth, soil structure, and carbon storage. As a relatively new science, much remains unknown about soil biology and its effect on soil ecosystems.
The Waksman Institute of Microbiology is a research facility on the Busch Campus of Rutgers University. It is named after Selman Waksman, a student and then faculty member at Rutgers who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952 for research which led to the discovery of streptomycin. The institute conducts research on microbial molecular genetics, developmental molecular genetics, plant molecular genetics, and structural and computational biology.
Rodale Institute is a non-profit organization that supports research into organic farming. It was founded in Emmaus, Pennsylvania in 1947 by J. I. Rodale, an organic living entrepreneur. After J.I. Rodale died in 1971, his son Robert Rodale purchased 333 acres and moved the farm to Kutztown, Pennsylvania.
Jillian Fiona Banfield is professor at the University of California, Berkeley with appointments in the Earth Science, Ecosystem Science and Materials Science and Engineering departments. She is the director of microbiology the Innovative Genomics Institute, is affiliated with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and has a position at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Some of her most noted work includes publications on the structure and functioning of microbial communities and the nature, properties and reactivity of nanomaterials.
Md. Tofazzal Islam is a biotechnologist, ecological chemist, educator, and author from Bangladesh. He is now a Professor and founding Director of the Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (IBGE) of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University (BSMRAU) in Bangladesh. He joined Bangladesh Open University (BOU) as a Lecturer in 1994 and became an Assistant, Associate and full Professor in 1997, 2004 and 2010, respectively. He joined BSMRAU on July 1, 2010, as a Professor and Head of the Department of Biotechnology.
Regenerative agriculture is a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It focuses on topsoil regeneration, increasing biodiversity, improving the water cycle, enhancing ecosystem services, supporting biosequestration, increasing resilience to climate change, and strengthening the health and vitality of farm soil.
Carolyn Branch Brooks is an American microbiologist known for her research in immunology, nutrition, and crop productivity. In 2018, she was named a faculty member emerita at University of Maryland Eastern Shore where she was an award-winning educator for more than three decades.
Jessica Green is an American entrepreneur, engineer, and ecologist. She is CEO of Phylagen, Inc., a biotech startup developing tools to monitor the microbiology of air. Prior to Phylagen, she was a Professor of Biology at the University of Oregon and co-founding director of the Biology and Built Environment Center. Green’s two talks at the TED Conferences on the Microbiomes of the built environment have received over 1.7 million views.
Kornelia Smalla is a chemist and biotechnologist at the Julius Kuehn Institute (JKI) in Braunschweig and a university lecturer in microbiology at the Technical University of Braunschweig.
Ellen Kandeler is a German biologist and agricultural scientist specialising in soil biology at University of Hohenheim. She also heads the Soil Biology area in the EU Biofector project.
Whendee Silver is an American ecosystem ecologist and biogeochemist.
Zoe G. Cardon is an American ecosystems ecologist focused on observing and understanding ecosystem interactions in the rhizosphere. She has also played an integral role in developing systems to better study the rhizosphere without digging it up and interfering with the ecosystems using stable isotopes and mathematical modeling. Cardon is currently a senior scientist at the Marine Biology Laboratory at the Ecosystems Center and an adjunct professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University. She is credited with helping to establish the National Microbiome Initiative at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in Washington, D.C.
Grace Gershuny is an American organic farmer, writer, and leader in the organic farming movement.
Amy Yarnell Rossman is an American mycologist and a leading expert in identifying fungi.
References
- ↑ Damrosch, Barbara (October 3, 2013). "'Symphony of the Soil,' soundtrack of life". Washington Post. p. T05.
- 1 2 Godwin, Sandra (February 29, 2012). "Organics worth the legwork". The Weekly Times (Australia). p. 70.
A key component is compost, which Mr Cafra began making himself after attending a course run by Dr Elaine Ingham, an American soil biology researcher and founder of Soil Foodweb Inc, who is recognised around the world as a leader in soil microbiology.
- 1 2 "Rodale Institute Names Dr. Elaine Ingham as Chief Scientist". Business Wire (Press release). New York. January 24, 2011.
- ↑ "Dr Ingham's background and CV". soilfoodweb.com.
- ↑ "People in the News". The Philadelphia Inquirer . July 18, 2011. p. A13.
- ↑ "Elaine Ingham, Charlotte Kahn Join Soil4Climate Advisory Board" (press release). Soil4Climate. March 7, 2018.
- ↑ Barlow, Genevieve (March 15, 2006). "Get the dirt on microbes". The Weekly Times (Australia). p. 31.
