When most people think of fungi the either think of a delicious meal or their toenails. And this is important to keep in mind as fungi can be beneficial (or delicious) or they can be detrimental (at least very least to toenails). But when it comes to soil, plants and overall health of the ecosystem, fungi are very important and managing them is one key to successful farming.

Protozoa are single-celled organisms that feed primarily on bacteria. They also eat other protozoa, soluble organic matter and sometimes fungi. They are important drivers of nutrient cycling as they release nutrients when they consume other organisms.

We started down the journey of making plant extracts over 20 years ago when we bought a farm covered in ragwort, thistles and gorse. We had no idea what we were getting into. Having studied with Elaine Ingham we had two important bits of information that guided us…

Through photosynthesis plants gather and deliver nutrients to the soil in exchange for the nutrients they need to grow. But this is only the beginning of an amazing and complex relationship that creates the world we know.

A fertilizer can be natural or synthetic (of course natural is best for a variety of reasons). Fertilizers can be applied to the soil or to the plant in a solid or liquid state. The idea is to give a plant what it needs for optimum growth. However, during the development of fertilizers, growth was really the only factor taken into consideration. The health of the plant or the animals and people that eat those plants was initially not really considered. As a result, plant growth and yields were increased, often along with reduced plant nutrition and increased plant and animal diseases. But what is it that a plant really wants?

Fact
When someone tells you that something is a fact they generally imply that a statement or information is true. This usually means it is something you can count on or use to get definitive results.
Opinion
When someone gives you an opinion, they are indicating that this is what they believe. It is their interpretation of some sort of information or supposed fact.

Yet often opinions are stated as facts and are then passed on as facts. We are bombarded everyday with information much of it repeated as fact.

We are racing into a new era of agriculture. The conventional system of agriculture (as we call it) that has been practiced increasingly over the last nearly 100 years is failing us by nearly every possible measure. We have an ecological disaster of soil, animal and human health on our hands globally. Increasingly we hear about these problems along with the big one climate change, but in reality climate change is the solution, not the problem.

Most people understand the simple concept of Photosynthesis. Plants take CO2 out of the atmosphere and, with the help of the sun, turn it into plants and trees and roots and really everything we see in the living world. So, photosynthesis is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight.

At Chaos Springs we have developed a system over our 40 years of organic growers to create fertility largely from within the farm boundary. This works by following these six practices.