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The Roots of Your Profits - Dr Elaine Ingham, Soil Microbiologist, Founder of Soil Foodweb Inc

Oxford Real Farming Conference · 327.4K views · 2015-01-25 · 1:36:14

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Overview

Soil microbiologist Elaine Ingham speaks at the Oxford Real Farming Conference on how soil organisms cycle nutrients, unlock minerals from rock and air, and why pesticides and fertilizers harm soil life. Slides are linked in the description.

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HN commenters cite her as the explanation for why soil biology, not added fertilizer, drives plant nutrition and farm results.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 6 months · HN mentions 2015–2024

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What people said

schiffern · 2024-10 · Recommendation

> Living soil consumes rock minerals making them available to plants. Thank you. This is one of those super-underappreciated biological facts. Industrial ag treats soil like it's a tank of fertility, and guess who sells the refills? Biologists know that healthy soil is a factory , making new fertility out of rock/air/rain/sun. Direct from soil microbiologist Dr Elaine Ingham: [VIDEO]

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vram22 · 2023-12 · Recommendation

Yes. I keep sharing Gabe Brown's three-part video series titled Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem, now and then, here on HN, whenever such threads come up. Some really solid practical and pragmatic stuff there, on regenerative agriculture, which, as I understand it [1], goes beyond organic farming, and is related to many of the issues talked about in this thread. [1] I had done organic gardening successfully, for a few years, some time earlier, so I have at least some practice and experience (and also a lot of reading and thinking about what I read) as the basis for my opinions of his work and those of others I mention, such as Elaine Ingham (a video by her is below too). One of her most astonishing finds / claims is that (IIRC, I saw the video a few years ago), almost all soils anywhere on earth have more than enough nutrients for plants for many many years. She said the real issue and limitation is the lack of soil organic content and soil structure and mycorrhiza ( [LINK] ), without which even applying tons of nutrients is useless. And, Gabe has a big farm, a few thousand acres (so not small scale) in North Dakota, USA, with field crops, green manure, livestock on pasture / prairie, etc. And is making profits from his farming operations, sustainably, even regeneratively, without government subsidies, and more than his conventionally-farming neighbors, some of whose soils are getting worse, while his get better over time, by objective measures (checked by external govt. age

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schiffern · 2023-02 · Recommendation

For a practical discussion of how this biotic cycling connects to agriculture, Dr Elaine Ingham delivers a salient presentation.[0] [0] [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Oxford Real Farming Conference, played through YouTube.

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