Manage Carbon/Nitrogen Ratio in Soil

Managing the Carbon/Nitrogen ratios in our soils is essential… and easy to do.

Plants have a symbiotic relationship with the microbes in the soil. Plants do things for the microbes that the microbes cannot do for themselves and microbes do things for the plant that plants cannot do for themselves.

Healthy soils contain billions upon billions of healthy microbes that make life great for plants in many ways. The microbes effects include but are not limited to: Reducing soil compaction, increasing nutrient retention and availability, buffering salts, protecting the root system from diseases and pests, providing essential organic acids, and so on.

In return for these services, the plant naturally releases some of its sugars (produced through photosynthesis) directly into the soil through its roots. These sugars serve as the primary food source for the microbes!

In other words, the microbes can’t feed themselves but have the ability and motive to improve soil conditions to best favor plant growth. The plant produces food for the microbes but can’t change the soil conditions.

When this relationship is in balance, successfully maintaining plants becomes much easier as Mother Nature begins doing most of the work for us.

All too often we spend most or all of our focus on the plant itself, ignoring the beneficial microbes. And unfortunately many of the things we do for the plant are harmful to the microbes.

So what’s the answer? Give the plant AND the microbes what they want.

Organic Carbon
For healthy microbes, ensuring sufficient organic carbon is essential. Microbes are highly sensitive to the Carbon/Nitrogen (C/N) ratio. Too much nitrogen and not enough carbon is bad, very bad. Organic carbon comes from Organic Matter. The problem here in Southern California is that most of our soils are very low in organic matter and therefore very low in organic carbon.

Nitrogen
When Nitrogen fertilizers that do not contain carbon are applied to these soils it throws the C/N ratio way out of balance. This has catastrophic effects on the soil microbes and results in a dramatic decline in their ability to improve plant and soil health.

Now, we all know that plants need nitrogen. And when it is applied the plant typically gets greener and grows faster. But it doesn’t usually last very long. And when it wears off, the plant goes back to looking like it did before we fed it… or worse! And what do we typically do? Add even more nitrogen!!!

This is the end of microbial life as the plant needs it.

Under these conditions simply adding more microbes has little effect. If they could live there they would already be there. Adding organic carbon however, immediately stimulates and encourages beneficial microbial activity. The solution then is to provide sufficient organic carbon to the soil. This not only helps to balance the use of nitrogen, but Organic Carbon serves as a supplemental food source for the microbes themselves.

One of the best sources of organic carbon is Humic Shale Ore which balances the Carbon/Nitrogen ratio and microbes thrive on it. This increased microbial activity allows the plant to use nitrogen much more efficiently. This in turn, allows for a reduction in the amount of nitrogen we need to apply which improves the C/N ratio yet again. What’s more, healthy soil, teeming with healthy microbes, increases the plant’s ability to utilize ALL plant nutrients.

What all this means is that by shifting your fertilization dollars from all plant nutrients to more carbon and less plant nutrients the whole system gets healthier. And because carbon is generally less expensive than the plant nutrients it’s a more economical approach as well.

Tim Deutscher
JTM Nutrients
www.jtmnutrients.com