As we rediscover the contributions of soil biology to plant nutrition and soil health, the phrase “biology supersedes chemistry” seems ever more appropriate.

Jon Stika succinctly describes biology as the driver of plant nutrition and soil water supply in A Soil Owner’s Manual, (which I added to my recommended reading list):

When asked if they know how to plant nutrients become available to plant roots, producer’s answers typically include the belief that fertilizer must be added to the soil, where the fertilizer dissolves in soil water and the plants take the nutrients in. In fact, 90% of the nutrients taken up by plant roots are cycled through a soil organism before becoming plant available. Virtually everything plants need is supplied by the soil organisms that live in collaboration with each living plant.1 Less than a third of the nitrogen fertilizer applied to a field ends up in the plants grown there.2 The rest is retained by some other form of life in the soil, volatizes into the atmosphere, runs off the field or leeches down below the root zone of the soil with the movement of water. Most analytical soil testing and fertilizer prescriptions are based on the response in crop production of plants grown in dysfunctional soils. The methods and prescriptions work quite well; for dysfunctional soils.3 This should come as no surprise, since most agricultural soils in the U.S. do not cycle nutrients very well, so the corresponding methods of testing and prescribing fertilizer application have evolved accordingly.

Water infiltration and nutrient cycling are just two basic examples of what we now understand are processes that are driven by the organisms living in the soil. This change in understanding of how the soil works as a biological system is a major paradigm shift for almost everyone in agriculture. Armed with this new understanding of soil function, producers can reduce and eliminate the symptoms of erosion, runoff, nutrient leaching, drought, and poor crop performance to become truly sustainable.

The bottom line is that the plant available water in the soil becomes plant available because soil microorganisms made the soil aggregates that allow the water to infiltrate and be stored in the soil. It is also soil microorganisms that cycle and make the vast majority of nutrients available to plants.

If asked, any producer will tell you that they expect their soil to grow profitable crops by supplying water and nutrients to their crops. What many folks don’t realize is that these two basic expectations of soil function (water and nutrient supply) are biologically driven. Keep the soil microorganisms happy and the system runs at peak efficiency. A more efficient system will be a more profitable system.

1. Lavelle, P. & Spain, A. Soil Ecology. (Springer Science & Business Media, 2001).
2. Stevens, W. B., Hoeft, R. G. & Mulvaney, R. L. Fate of nitrogen-15 in a long-term nitrogen rate study: II. Nitrogen uptake efficiency. Agron. J. 97, 1046–1053 (2005).
3. Laboski, C. A. M. et al. Evaluation of the Illinois soil nitrogen test in the north central region of the United States. Agron. J. 100, 1070–1076 (2008).