[Homesteadingfamily] Lawn Soil Types

From comfylawn.com

The sun is out and our lawn soil and green grass like all of us, love it.
Through photosynthesis, carbohydrates and proteins are carried throughout
the plant and then get secreted out through the roots as exudates.
Those exudates attract bacteria and fungi, which live in organic soil.

As the plant roots grow the excess root tissue along with organic matter
feed bacteria and fungi. All of this fun stuff happens in about a 1/10 of an
inch surrounding the roots called the rhizosphere.
What happy days these must be for the bacteria and fungi with all that free
food in the earth. If only life was that simple. Unfortunately for them,
everything in nature has a predator. Theirs in this case would be bigger
microbes called protozoa and nematodes.
They eat the bacteria along with the fungi and what they excrete, is taken
up by the plant as nutrients. Pretty simple way to feed a plant isn't it. It
gets nutrients without any help from you or I.
It's even more amazing when you realize there are billions of microbes in
just a tiny amount of lawn soil. It's a pretty busy place.
So the kill or be killed saga continues. Protozoa and nematodes are then
eaten by arthropods, which are like insects and spiders and they in turn are
eaten by either each other or larger arthropods along with birds, snakes or
other animals. All this decaying and excretion feeds the plant.
This whole process we've been talking about is called the soil food web. All
the members of this web are continuously looking for carbon to consume which
is what the microbes, insects and organic matter are all made up of.

Why does all this happen? Because the plant needs the nutrients.

The plants controls what kind and how many exudates based on its needs. The
soil food web is an amazing natural source of nutrition for our lawns but it
also has many other functions as well.
It cycles minerals and nutrients, decomposes organic matter and enables good
structure.
So you can see why it is important to our lawns health. Just as important to
know is that continued use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides severely
disrupt the soil food web.
That's why the chemicals have to be applied several times a year to keep
grass green. The turf doesn't have it's natural food source any more.
It's dependant on the chemicals. Yes, your lawn's addicted.

So not only are the chemicals hurting the food source for the plants it's
also ruining the organic structure of the loam.

Healthy loam contains aproximately:
25% air
25% water
45% mineral
5% organic matter
Good biology helps maintain that structure.

Earthworms and the other participants in the web move around the rich earth
leaving a slimy residue on the particles. That in turn binds the particles
together creating what is called aggregates.
You know when you grab a handful of good loam it forms a ball. That's why it
s able to do that. So while the "eating each other" frenzy continues,
earthworms and all the other participants create small tunnels allowing air,
water and nutrients to pass through. Something very important to the health
of grass and it's root system.
You see with these tunnels the rain soaks in and pushes all the stale air
out allowing fresh, clean air to circulate back in, creating an aerobic
healthy environment.

Using conventional fertilizers disrupt that whole process. If you were an
earthworm would you stay around if someone dumped salt and petroleum
by-products on you on a regular bases?
A large earthworm population is a strong indicator of healthy, living lawn soil.

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