Hi Trevor, (and Ben and everyone, as I will rewrite the lost text below)

Thanks for working on fine-tuning the inner workings of this Forum. I think it went like this. I read Ben's message at night and the next morning I turned on the computer and Firefox had maintained this tab for me. The Forum allowed me to write my whole response over maybe the course of half an hour (as I was checking on links to Elaine Ingham's text, etc.), but then it did not let me send it, nor return to it, nor was it saved anywhere. It would be great for messages to automatically get saved every few minutes, as in Gmail.

- - - THE LOST TEXT ON SOIL BIOLOGY - - - (which got lost when the Forum logged me out)

Elaine Ingham (of www.soilfoodweb.com/), author of the Soil Biology Primer I mentioned, does very interesting work on soil biology. She and her colleagues look at soil samples under the microscope, to see how abundant the various groups of microbes are. Then, she makes custom compost, carefully adjusting the amount of sawdust versus green vegetation, versus manure, etc. Next, instead of just scattering the compost around on the soil, she makes Aerated Compost Tea and sprinkles it on bigger tracts of soil to reintroduce the microbes that are missing. Seeds can also be soaked in this tea, thus innoculating them with beneficial microbes that will live on the plant's surface during its whole life. These microbes have very much to do with the availability of nutrients to the plants.

Best wishes, Chris

Hi Chris

Did you manage to figure out why the forum logged you out automatically?
Do you recall how much time elapsed before you were automatically logged out?
The reason I ask is we are putting together an additional entry into the forum help section on exactly this problem, hence your feedback would be very useful.

Kind regards
Trevor

Hey Chris,

Thanks for that, looks perfect. For the glance I had at it she looks like explaining things in a very nice comprehensive way, just what I needed.

Wish you a good day and looking forward to hear about your pedal UDDT !

Ben

Hi Ben,

I know you asked about soil chemistry, but this is tightly linked to soil biology.

Check out this Primer on Soil Biology by Elaine Ingham (of www.soilfoodweb.com/)

soils.usda.gov/sqi/concepts/soil_biology/biology.html

(This posting was more complete, but the forum had logged me out automatically and my text got lost.)

I look forward to seeing more postings on publications about soil.

Best wishes,
Chris Canaday

Dear Agas,

Thanks a lot, I heard of him many times without finding any of his papers.
This is exactly what I was looking for,

Best,

Ben

Dear Ben,

I'm sure others will provide links to the latest information on this subject. I would like to introduce some history.

Sir Albert Howard was probably one of the first in relatively recent times to understand and document the need close the cycle of growth and decay, including the benefits of composting our own 'humanure'. Perhaps one of the founding parents of sustainable sanitation? He was a soil scientist who studied the role of compost in promoting the fungal link in plant nutrition and developed methods of introducing composting into commercial agriculture. He also provides a fascinating history of the rise and fall of various civilisations with reference to their agricultural practices.

See:
journeytoforever.org/farm_library/howardAT/ATtoc.html

regards,
Agas

Dear everyone,

I think lots of sanitation practitioners have a background in public health, hydraulics or civil engineering, we talk a lot in this forum about fertilizer, humus, compost, depletion of soils, etc ... and maybe this feeling is personal but I would really love to read more detailed papers on the chemistry of soils and their micro-organism activity, without really knowing where to start.

So here is my question, I know agriculture is a lifetime learning science but could anyone share the best publications (for beginners on the subject but complete at the same time) we can find online about soil chemistry, micro organism involved in decomposition and agriculture, chemical role of compost.

I think publications on these subjects would be very welcome in the Susana library as well.

Thanks a lot,

Ben