Renewable Farming

Free soil-building webinar by John Kempf “goes viral”

John Kempf, founder of the firm Advancing Eco Agriculture, conducted an online seminar for a limit of 300 participants earlier this week.

Since then the firm has made it available online on YouTube at this link.

If you see a response that this link has been marked private, visit the firm’s home site, Advancing Eco Agriculture, for announcements of future webinars.

The seminar points you to ways you can build soil microbial life and active humus while you’re raising productive, profitable crops — without prohibitive fertilizer costs.

The main message is building populations of beneficial mycorrhizal fungi, which are the “slow digesters and preservers” of lignin and cellulose in crop residue.

Rapid recycling by bacteria devours crop carbons, leading to oxidation and release of carbon as carbon dioxide. However, the web of fungal organisms captures so much carbon, and reduces it to active humus, that a big crop with tons of residue per acre becomes a major asset for soil building.