THE SOIL FOOD WEB & THE GIVING SEASON

I have been thinking a lot about Christmas traditions lately. And naturally it’s got me thinking about plants and the soil food web system. Plants have an inbuilt mechanism for giving, an inherent sharing wisdom. Plants freely exude precious sugars they’ve made from photosynthesis into the soil around them, feeding bacteria and fungi.

Plants don’t have to do this for survival, but by doing so they create a community where the bacteria and fungi in turn provide plants with minerals, water, a better soil structure and protection from infection. So powerful is this system of giving that the soil food web has evolved to become the key land-based productive system on our planet (it’s good to remember that despite the lofty place we hold ourselves, we humans are just here at the grace of plant generosity)… read on…