Orchard People

Susan: Hey everybody. Welcome to the show today. If there's one thing I've learned in the last 10 years or so, it's that healthy fruit trees need healthy soil, and healthy soil is gonna be full of life.
It's gonna be filled with multitudes of beneficial organisms that'll work really hard to break down organic matter, and they act like a team of friendly volunteers working really hard to feed our fruit trees and our other plants.
So in previous episodes of this podcast, we've talked about lots of ways to stimulate soil life. We've talked about wood chip mulch and biochar. We've talked about soil testing, regular old fashioned soil testing. We've talked about bio fertilizers and regenerative sprays, and also talk extensively about the soil in my book Grow Fruit Trees Fast. But here's the real question. What is actually living in your soil? Do you even know? Do you have a thriving community of microbes, or is your soil just dust? So one way to find out is by using a microscope. Really powerful microscopes allow you to analyze your soil and see what's actually in there.
[00:01:19] Exploring Soil Microscopy
Susan: So today we're going to explore what soil microscopy is. With these powerful microscopes, we can see exactly what's going on and what you'll learn today might actually change the way you see your soil forever. So I've got a great guest today.
[00:01:37] Interview with Matt Powers
Susan: He is Matt Powers. He's a bestselling author, he's an educator, he's a citizen scientist, and the creator of the website regenerativesoilscience.com.
And I'm gonna talk to Matt in just a moment. But first, what are your thoughts about soil microscopy? Have you ever tried it, or do you have any questions about fruit tree soil or stories to share? If you're watching us on YouTube, pop your questions and comments into the chat box, and Matt and I will reply as soon as we can.
And don't forget to click on the like and subscribe button. So finally, Matt, welcome to the show today.
Matt: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Susan: I'm so glad you're here with me today. And today I hope to unravel all the mysteries around soil microscopy. So tell me what exactly is it?
Matt: It's funny because a lot of people have these overlaid conceptions about what it is. We're simply making small things big, just like your doctor would. Just like the veterinarian does. We're making small things big so that we can see what's really going on, and predict actually what could go wrong or look for indicators of health.
Susan: So interesting.
Matt: That's all it is.
Susan: So the crazy thing is, if it's so simple, why haven't we been doing this for decades?
[00:03:04] Understanding Soil Testing and Microscopy
Susan: Like soil testing, how does this compare to traditional soil testing?
Matt: Traditional soil testing, with the Mehlich-3 (M3) soil test, they imitated, to the best of their ability, what roots were, in their minds, releasing to release the nutrients from the soil, and that was what we call soluble nutrients.
But Haney (Rick Haney) came along, and he created this test called the Haney Test, which is more true to what plant roots release. And so that shows you the minerals. And we had a mineral conception. That's why everyone says it's all chemistry, but chemistry's a language. And so even in the biology world, you go down deep enough, you get to the chemistry language.
So it's simply a language. So when everyone's oh no, the chemistry. It's just a language and they were talking about minerals and amendments and those metrics so that they could manage it from that perspective and their understanding, which was rooted in that. So, biology came late to the game because we were essentially sterilizing our fields.
We had germ theory. The germs are bad. Even in 2002, 2003, Elaine Ingham was saying, if you find problems in your plant, and this is published in her Field Guides, she says, if there's microbes in your plants, your plants are sick. And so the understanding of where the biology is, who is good, is all new.
So Elaine Ingham was seen as fringe, 20 years ago. Yet she was saying it was impossible or the idea was fringe, that you have endophytes. But we have a microbiome in our body, so plants do too. And that's what we're looking at.
[00:05:05] The Role of Microbes in Soil Health
Matt: We're looking at the microbiome. And the microbiome is not just inside them.
Of course, we have microbes on our skin and they're beneficial too, but this is very different. They have an externalized digestion in part, and so does bacteria and fungi. So there's this great overlap of behavior between ourselves, between bacteria and fungi and plants, and we're in this loop.
What I figured out is we're in a cycle. And if we don't understand the biology, 'cause they're the ones doing the chemistry in nature, then we miss out on. Because what we learned with the chemistry route was, oh, we just add this, we add that. And then it didn't add up. But it was lacking that, and I added that.
Why didn't it fix it? It's because you needed biology to handle and manage that. And so it's simply just that.
Susan: Awesome. I love the big picture. So here we're putting together this puzzle. So we talk about the chemistry part, the minerals in the soil. And plants do need minerals. They, for sure, need minerals. It's important to have minerals in your soil.
So conventional soil testing had one piece of the puzzle. Elaine Ingham comes along and she says wait a minute. There's more in the soil than chemicals. And everybody's saying, whoa, you're crazy, lady. If there is stuff in the soil, we don't even want it there.
So then she worked very hard and what a brave person, right? To go against the grain and to say, wait a minute. We need to know what organisms are in the soil, what roles they play. That's the second piece, and that's the piece you took and ran with. And obviously it made you feel very passionate to start learning about what is in the soil.
So I understand you took Elaine's course, you became an expert in soil microscopy. How? What happens? Do you just take a bit of soil from the ground anywhere near, let's say your fruit tree? Or is it like with soil testing where you have to go down six inches, you have to go right down? Or does it need to be near the roots of the tree? What would the steps be, if I wanted to have somebody like you test the soil around my fruit trees?
Matt: First I should clarify, Elaine Ingham was one of my original mentors in 2014, over 10 years ago. She helped me with writing the soil food web sections in Permaculture Student 1 in 2015, and then the largest chapter of the Permaculture Student 2 is with her 45 pages. And so I learned a ton from her.
Then I started learning from Dr. James White, who's a microscopist, who does mycology. And so I've really been able to gather all these different mentors and marry the different methodologies.
And with technology that I can see it and prove it, and DNA testing, I was really able to extract things from it that were useful, but also update, correct, disambiguate.
For instance, nematode mouth. We might talk about nematodes today. Nematode mouths. They morph. They're dimorphic, so depending on the food, depending on if there's too many males, those females might suddenly become big and have teeth, and become predators.
So we have a very different and dynamic space that my work has been able to reveal. And so if I came out to your space, I would be looking at multiple things. I'd be looking at the rhizosphere, but then I would be looking past the rhizosphere, so close to the root rhizosphere. And I would be looking at your roots as well, but I would go past it 'cause that's what it's gonna encounter next. That's the future.
And with soil testing going 6 to 8 inches is great with testing the biology. You want to know the surface biology. That's breaking down your mulch and the detritus and creating the foods, right? Now, the ones that are deeper, they're cycling the minerals from the silicates, right?
So there's breakdown decompositional, and more oxidizing, more alkaline microbes on top on the surface. That's why our roots sometimes go up 'cause they need those nutrients that are more alkaline, more oxidized. So they're going up.
The ones that are lateral or down, that are mostly in more of the clay, sand, silt, the silicates 'cause clay, sand, and silt are all forms of silicates. Your computer silicon chips. They're conducting information. They're conducting energy and they're holding the past information as well, that DNA, and all that accumulation of organic matter. And so they're sourcing that and plugging into that, and it's a two-way street.
This is why, as they break things down, the soil gets built and structure gets built, and organic matter gets built, necromass, and literally, just the organic matter getting smaller and smaller as they eat it and digest it. So it's this beautiful, I think of it as a community.
So, there's an economy within the community. They're working together, but there's also competition. There's protection. They gotta protect against the invaders, so I think of them as a community.
And so I would look at outside the root zone. In the root zone. I'd be looking at the leaf surface. I'd be looking at the roots, because all those things have different things to tell us.
Susan: Gotcha. Okay. So there you are. So I guess you would have to be on the site.
[00:11:08] Practical Soil Testing Techniques
Susan: It's not like you could say, Hey, Susan, go into your backyard, grab some soil, send it to me in a package. You would really need to know, okay, from here, from there, from everywhere. I guess for my listeners, who are home growers, they'd be like, this sounds complicated.
Maybe I can't do it because I need to know exactly where to get my test from, whereas with a lab, they just say go six inches down and go do a bunch of samples. So is it the same? Do you have to go to the site to do a test or can somebody send you their soil?
Matt: No, you would have to identify where it's from in the soil, and I could do it, or one of my students could do it.
Let me show you.
Susan: Sure. Okay.
Matt: So you can see the moisture on this, right?
Susan: Okay. So you're showing us a plastic bag filled with soil, and Yes, I see that the soil is moist. It's not soggy, but yeah, it's moist for sure.
Matt: So this has been in this baggie, open, for four years.
Susan: Oh, wow.
Matt: And it's never dried out. Because the aspects that are beneficial in your compost that last for years, which is what Dr. Johnson created. (David Johnson, University of Mexico, created Johnson-Su compost with his wife). If those aspects, 'cause he proved that it improved soil, after one application, for seven years straight.
If the benefits continue to accrue, then they should actually be in the bag for years too, shouldn't they?
Susan: Huh? Amazing.
Matt: 'Cause if they stay in the soil, and it's about size, so you need about two cups in a baggie. If it's really good soil or really good compost, the attributes will change, so your nematodes will go away, your fungi will stay but slowly start turning into spore form, the testate amoebae and bacteria will stay strong the whole time, which is amazing. Pretty amazing. So years. Moisture. And so you could send two cups if your soil's really good.
If your soil's really bad, it'll arrive and it'll be like this.
Susan: Aha. A baggie filled with dry sand looking stuff. Dry sand.
Matt: Yeah, yeah, so different strokes for different folks. We gotta be observant because yes, your soil might be bad. And you might get it wet and put it in a muddy baggie, and still have it dry out and become rock hard if we leave it open, because it doesn't have these attributes that make it regenerative. And that's how powerful regenerative solutions are. The attributes of what makes something good or beneficial. They stick around and they stay. And this is not just the only one. All of Michael Stangl's lawn care is like this.
Susan: I love this. Here's why. You've just shared with us a technique that I can do in my backyard without paying anybody anything, right? Gather some soil, put it in a zip lock bag, zip it up or leave it open.
Matt: I do half closed.
Susan: Half closed.
Matt: I go like that, and then leave this whole side open. That's my technique.
Susan: Can I put it in the shed or should it be in the house where it's warmer, or?
Matt: I like to keep it cool. And I have a thing where I try to, and it might sound silly, but.
Susan: Silly is good. I like silly.
Matt: I put all my compost and all my soil samples on the ground because that's where they're from. And as we lift things up, it's different. It's different.
Susan: Oh, for sure. I heard microbes don't like to be upside down, either. Just you wouldn't like to be upside down if I hung you from your feet. You'd be like, Hey, this is uncomfortable.
Matt: If gravitropism is a thing and roots know, go down, then microbes are probably orienting themselves as well.
Susan: Yeah, totally. So very interesting. Okay, test number one, everybody. So we're all gonna get our zip lock bags and do a test. Put it on the ground somewhere cool-ish, and then check back in a week, in two weeks.
And even that alone will give us a hint as to what's going on in our soil. That is so exciting and so empowering.
Okay, so next. I want you to show me. You get that baggie. Let's say I send you the bag and you're like, Susan, okay, I'm gonna check out your soil. How much do you need for this powerful microscope of yours in order to see all the little critters that are hanging out in my soil?
Matt: So when you take one mL, or one gram roughly, and put it into a test tube and mix it up with 10 mLs of water, although you might take that and water it down further to do further tests, that's all you're taking when you do it. And then you would take three drops, top, middle, bottom, and people are like, why would you do that?
That's because the microbes actually settle in those things. And you're taking it from one mL soil where they weren't separated. They weren't separate. We created that situation. So I always do those three levels so that we can see all the microbes that are there present in that profile section.
And then I would do that three or more times. So nine drops.
Susan: Hey, are you gonna shake this thing up? Again, the little microbes might say, Hey buddy, you're shaking me up. This is killing me here. I get a headache.
Matt: So if you have sharp sand and you do it really hard, you'll just eviscerate everything. And so I'm pretty gentle.
When you actually do it gently, you actually see how soluble your soil and soil organic matter really is. With something like this (referring to active soil retaining moisture for years), this is gonna turn it cloudy, opaque chocolate brown.
okay. yeah, So if you put the soil in water and shake it up, the really good compost is going to turn that solution opaque. You aren't gonna see through it. It's gonna be chocolate brown, ideally. And that gives you an idea of what's happening in your soil. There's an expansion, there's mobility.
The thing is with these dried dead soils, that's just gonna have clear water in two seconds. You're gonna shake it up and then it's also to the bottom, and you're gonna see right through that solution.
Wow. And so that test alone tells you how good your soil organic matter is. You might have soil organic matter at a good percentage, but you shake it up and the water is not opaque and you can see through it and it's clear, you know that organic matter is insoluble.
You know that organic matter is likely dried out and desiccated and now hydrophobic.
Susan: Oh my gosh, this is so great. So now we have to easy test number two. I love it. We take a jar, let's take a spoon of our soil and if we gently shake it up and it's opaque and it's all nicely mixed together, we say, Hey, I think my soil might be good.
And if we shake it up, and it's like a snow globe where you've got the separate bits that come down and nothing really sticks together, then you're thinking, yeah, maybe I need to work on the soil organism part.
So I'm just curious. Is it the soil organisms that make, that are the difference between the soil that mixes properly?
Like logically, I'm trying to get my head around how does little beings in there make things mix better?
Matt: Michael Stengl actually exaggerates what he's doing with this because he re-composts his compost. And that's why it's so fine. It's finely broken down organic matter.
Susan: Oh.
Matt: So fine that it goes into solution.
Susan: This is evidence your microbes have been working. Yeah. It's not because the microbes are in there. It's evidence that they have been nibbling away at the delicious organic matter, making it into smaller and smaller and yummier pieces. Yummy for the fruit trees. And that actually makes sense because fruit trees don't have teeth.
They have to take in their nutrients in liquid form. And so if your soil mixes so beautifully with the water. Then it seems like the tree can take it in. Whereas if it doesn't mix beautifully with the water, then the tree will take in the water without the big pieces of not really digested compost or even pieces of rock that soil is also made of.
Wow, that's mind blowing. Okay, another quick question. Water, does it matter?
[00:20:23] Water Quality and Soil Testing
Susan: Does it have to be rain water? Can it be tap water? Doesn't tap water have chemicals in it that kills stuff?
Matt: I used to tell people in permaculture, rainwater was the best, rainwater is this, rainwater is that, and now people find the craziest chemicals and scary things in their rainwater 'cause of cloud seeding cowboys and possibly worse, right? So I don't have any definitive, I'm not in those planes. I can't test those kinds of things to know. But...
Susan: So you'll use tap water?
Matt: I like to use filtered well water.
Susan: Oh, okay.
Matt: Ideally. Or surface water if you can get it.
But in Texas, that's harder.
Susan: Yeah. Yeah.
Matt: Yeah. The ultimate water for farmers, because they don't want to influence pH or oxidization with any kind of mineral in there, is reverse osmosis. It's expensive and it's wasteful 'cause you have wastewater from that process, like sometimes 30% of the water.
But when you add your foliar spray ingredients to reverse osmosis water, it's just like when you use reverse osmosis water for tea. When was the last time you had reverse osmosis water tea? It was the most flavorful tea you've ever had. 'cause it's, I always call these things lonely 'cause they're like, come here and they like pull the thing.
This is what biochar, when it's just char, does. It pulls everything out of it. And it's the same sort of thing with RO is that it fully embodies that whatever you're setting it to, it sets it to that, because it's empty.
Susan: Cool. So it's interesting you say that because we did, for years, have reverse osmosis water and my husband Cliff would make sprouts with the regular water. I think we might have had a carbon filter for years, and we used to have great sprouts. The first time he tried to make it with the reverse osmosis water, the sprouts just didn't grow 'cause there was nothing in the water that they could eat. So that's why I'm surprised that reverse osmosis water would be good for the microscopy.
Matt: Foliar spray.
Susan: Oh, for foliar spray.
Matt: For foliar spray.
Susan: Oh, for foliar spray. So it's sucking out all the nutrients into itself and then I'm spraying my tree. Oh, okay.
Matt: And so the thing you want to do with, the only reason we're doing reverse osmosis in this instance, is because we don't want to influence what we're putting into it.
We want the thing we're putting into it, to be the influence.
Susan: Gotcha.
Matt: And we wanna make sure when we spray on the plant, it's the same form that we intended. And so that's all.
Susan: Would you ever use reverse osmosis water for microscopy or would that confuse things too much?
Matt: No, I use distilled water.
Susan: Okay. So that's similar.
Matt: Yeah. I don't want influence and so I do that.
Susan: It's a neutral palette. Okay. Wow. Okay, so you gently mix up this stuff and I guess you put a drop on a little glass that you'll put under your super duper powerful microscope.
And you talked about the community, how much will be going on when we blow this up? We're gonna go into each of the characters that we are likely to meet when we delve into this drop of sample liquid. But in general, is there gonna be a lot of activity? If, for instance, it's backyard soil from an urban environment, what will that life look like versus compost?
What will the life look like on that sample?
Matt: In an urban center, depending on where you are. If you're in Detroit, Michigan, there, just because of the amazing humidity, original soils, like that place will have fungi in those urban soils. But Philadelphia, where it's been a little beaten harder, a little bit hotter, a little bit more concrete, soil's not as good.
You're going to have less fungal activity. And in a lot of these urban areas, it's just gonna be bacteria. But in places where you see like oaks and maples breaking through concrete and ruining houses, like in Detroit, you're gonna have fungi, you're going to see that you're going to have the land reclaiming itself.
But in places like New York, Philadelphia, it's going to be dominant bacteria because you don't have those elements as strong any longer. So it's gonna be simple. It's not going to have nematodes. It might have testate amoebae in the more soil organic matter rich urban soils.
In compost, good compost, you're gonna see, one to three nematodes per drop, minimum. But it could be also, 10 to 12, depending on how predator rich your compost is and how big the foundation is. The thing is, I'll see a perfect, I'll see all the members there, right?
And everyone's it's great. And I'm like, your bacteria is low. You're about to hit a wall because the actual, like the base for your entire trophic system is bacteria, just like microalgae is in the ocean. We can look at the microalgae, we can look at the smallest things and know how it affects the trophic chain.
And I can look at these things and I can see that there's an imbalance. So I wanna see enough bacteria, I wanna see spores, I wanna see fungal hyphae. Usually that fungal hyphae is gonna be saprophytic in compost, of course. 'Cause you're breaking down compost.
Some of it's gonna be pathogenic. Because there is pathogenic endophytes that are also saprophytes.
Susan: We're gonna talk about endophytes. That's a whole amazing kettle of fish. I really wanna talk about that in a bit. But, sorry, I interrupted you there.
I want inside my head to understand you're talking about fungi and bacteria and a certain balance between the two, and you don't want all of one bacteria. Ahuh. So it's not like there's a general pool. I want 50% bacteria and I want 50% fungal organisms. You wanna make sure.
Matt: Those are okay benchmarks. Oh, and I use that with the microBIOMETER because the way that counting physically and measuring physically never scales up.
And so you'll have 30 to 50% difference between the same person doing the same sample or same drop in an evaluation because we all have different eyes. And unfortunately, up to 70% of the bacteria, you can't see. So it is a fool's errand to count bacteria manually.
And you can do this as a benchmark because you can see the large bacteria. Okay. So that's diagnostic, but it's not definitive numerically. So I have a very different approach to that whole thing. I use the microBIOMETER to get a fungal to bacterial ratio. But I also talk about how you can trick that test.
I also talk about how you need to go into that test with knowledge of the context. So if you have anaerobic soot or biochar, it'll screw that test up.
But every test has weaknesses, every test, right?
Susan: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
Matt: I can't see 70%, no one with a light microscope or bright-field microscopy can look at an E.coli and tell you if it's pathogenic or not.
It's too small and there's no morphological identifying features. We don't see 60 to 70% of the bacteria 'cause they're too small. So I can go a little bit further. The resolution limit for regular white light is only a thousand x. So there's all these microscopes on Amazon and essentially like 2000 magnification. And that's made up. They're just trying to really sell you something.
Susan: Wow.
Matt: 'Cause the thing is, it's resolution so you can make it bigger, but it'll be blurrier. You can't sharpen it.
Susan: Okay. So interesting. So obviously in our short show, we won't be able to get into the minutia and all those wonderful details, which I know we'll talk about your courses at the end, which you cover in your courses.
[00:29:45] Balancing Fungi and Bacteria in Soil
Susan: But let's say you are looking for a balance between fungi and bacteria. I think a lot of people listening know the difference, but can you, in a couple of words, say what's the difference between fungi and bacteria?
Matt: Okay, so there's an order of magnitude difference in size. On the whole, there's some very large bacteria, right?
There's some smaller fungi and some thicker and larger fungi, but on a whole, they are a magnitude difference. So there are a 100 times or 10 times difference in size.
Susan: Which is bigger, the fungi are bigger ?
Matt: Fungi are much bigger. Fungi are bigger, okay?
That's why you can see it with the microBIOMETER,
Susan: Right.
Matt: Bacteria's going to be clear. Fungis gonna hold color.
Susan: Oh, that's the difference. Okay. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah.
[00:30:37] Introduction to microBIOMETER and Its Benefits
Susan: And sorry, the microBIOMETER, that's your microscope, is that another name for your microscope or is that a different tool?
Matt: No, that's a different tool.
So the thing is, everything has to be holistic and we're still looking at the minerals, we're still, instead of maybe the M3, you're doing the Haney, which is better. But you're still looking at the minerals and maybe you're testing your plant's sap for the minerals that get in.
So minerals aren't leaving. And so other tests are okay. The reason the microBIOMETER is so great, is it's objective. So it's not my ability to count versus your ability to count. How good is your microscope? How good is your camera? How big of a screen do you have? This all makes a difference.
Think about this. If it's 4K, I could get a seven foot screen.
Susan: Oh my goodness. And still
Matt: 4K, and I can see things that no one else can see.
Susan: Oh my goodness.
Matt: Just because my screen is just bigger.
Susan: Yeah. Yeah. So it's all about the tools.
Matt: Yeah.
[00:31:38] Understanding Fungal and Bacterial Ratios
Matt: And so I did invent a way to fix that, and fungal to bacterial ratios, this works great.
It's fast. Okay. It's easy, it's effective, and it's a wonderful, simple benchmark. Fungal, bacterial, but you need the microscope to know who, right? And then if you wanna go deeper into who's there, you gotta do DNA testing.
Susan: Gotcha. Okay. That's getting complicated, but we've got fungal and bacterial.
That's amazing. We've got our various tools and you've described so well about how small this life is, right to this idea of a big huge screen. And you could actually be in front of this screen and see things like a thousand times bigger than they are anyways. That's quite amazing.
Then we had fungi and bacteria. We've talked a little bit about the difference.
[00:32:28] Exploring Nematodes and Their Role
Susan: Then, you mentioned nematodes. Those guys are big compared to the fungi and bacteria. Am I right? Tell me about nematodes.
Matt: Yeah, and I'll tell you about how they look. So bacteria, they're going to be rods, they're going to be spheres, but they also can become like hyphae, so the branching filaments.
Susan: But they'll be clear.
Matt: They'll be clear.
Susan: That's how we know they're not fungi.
Matt: They'll be clear if you're running a light through them at the scale that microBIOMETER is doing it. You're going down to the microscopic level. They can have color. Purple non-sulfur bacteria will show up red.
You're also blasting with light, so the color gets washed out a lot. So we have to always remember everything's more vibrant. Different things work differently at different scales. And as we go down further and smaller, everyone's saying everything is quantum, right?
Because the physics start to change. Bacteria, rods, spheres, some filamentous, some hyphae.
And then fungi. Fungi, this is all dendritic. They look like roots. They look like little twigs. And then they look filamentous, but they also look like yeast, so they look like giant cells.
And that's the thing. You have these tiny bacteria, and then you have these giant ones that look like bacteria but they aren't, and they've got organelles in them. And those are the yeast.
So they go up in size, they go up in magnitude, and then nematodes are eating bacteria and fungi. And you can tell from their mouth parts what they're eating and they'll change those mouth parts in accordance to the food quite often. If you have nematodes, and they're problematic nematodes, and you change the environment, you change their food, you'll usher in better nematodes.
And people are like, it's amazing. There's just new nematodes that came outta nowhere. They changed their mouth parts. And they just went through several generations of that, and now you've got a complete new population.
Susan: When I think about nematodes, to me, I think of a sort of weird, very tiny worm or something.
And it feels more animal-like than a fungal spore or a bacteria. What makes them, or is this just in my imagination, what makes them more like an animal compared to a fungal spore, for instance?
Matt: They are the most ubiquitous animal and they're part of Animalia, the animal kingdom. So they are, you're totally correct.
Susan: They're an animal.
Okay. Let's keep going.
[00:35:16] Amoeba and Their Interactions
Susan: Let's talk about amoeba. Okay. Tell me about the amoeba and where does that fit in this list of characters that we'll find in our underground community.
Matt: They are preyed upon by nematodes, but they also seemingly can prey upon nematodes. I have footage of a nematode trapped inside a large testate amoeba, and it seems like its mouth has closed like a clam.
So, that was super interesting. So that gives you an idea of the size. They're basically equivalent, but there's tiny testate amoebae that they will eat. And the large one, it looked like it was trying to pilfer the stomach contents of the testate amoeba and the testate amoeba was like, I'm gonna eat you.
Susan: They can really fight back!
Matt: Yeah. And they move like it's real time.
Susan: And so who usually wins in the battle? Is it usually the nematodes are bigger and stronger than the amoeba and they'll eat the amoeba?
Matt: It's a video and it's on YouTube. It's the first time I've ever seen them interact like that.
Susan: Oh, okay.
Matt: So much of the footage I've been able to discover, I am the first. And it's bizarre to me, a lot of it is bizarre to me. I'm like, wait, scientists never did this? They never did light from the side? This was created because of an idea I had of side lighting. Linear thinkers. I'm an artist, I'm a musician. I come from a completely different world. And so I approach the science and so many things, so many breakthroughs and new techniques have just landed in my lap. And then I go to my mentors who are scientists who have been doing this for decades, and I go, Hey, is this okay? And they're like, that's amazing.
Susan: That's very cool.
Matt: And then I turn around and share with everyone, but I'm always checking in with people who have been doing this a very long time. I started with Elaine Ingham, but then, Dr.
James F. White at Rutgers University. He's the guy who really replicated, improved rhizophagy. And so there's just a bunch of folks, Alan Rockefeller, the mycologist. All these folks have really helped me round out my understanding so that I could do all this.
Susan: Amazing. So much fun.
Okay, so now we know that mostly amoeba is lunch for nematodes. Mostly though, amoeba can...
Matt: So amoeba are going to eat bacteria. They're gonna eat fungi, they're gonna eat the things below them. They're gonna have this antagonistic back and forth with nematodes, depending on their size and their type.
And then, above them, you have micro arthropods, which look like tiny insects.
Springtails. They are, right? Mites. They are. They're tiny insects.
Susan: They're tiny insects.
Matt: And no-see-ums. You're like, Ah, what is biting me? And they'd be like, that sounds like a no-see-um, right?
There are tiny insects that bite us that we cannot see. And there are tiny insects that are in our soil that we cannot see without a microscope.
Susan: Okay, so these mites and these other tiny insects, would they eat nematodes?
Matt: They do.
Susan: Okay. They do. So they're at the top of the food chain now. These tiny insects are top of the food chain except for the feisty little amoeba that you found that ate the nematode, it's like a cow eating a human or something saying, I'm fighting back.
Wow. So a lot is going on in this soil. That's incredible. Is there any characters we're missing that we should talk about before we talk a little bit more about endophytes? Have we missed anybody?
Matt: So in the soil food web conception, we just covered everything.
[00:39:24] The Importance of Mycorrhizal Fungi
Matt: But micorrhizal fungi,
the fungi that lives on, and lives in, our roots of our plants. It's over, if you include both ecto and endo, it's over 97% of plants rely upon the symbiotic relationship. So to me, it's so fundamental that, leaving it out is, you're right, we can't leave it out.
Our plants co-evolved with a fungi that accounts for up to 30 to 40% of the yield, so their growth and their fruit. And so we're talking about something that's so important, but we killed. So with nitrate fertilizer, phosphate fertilizer, we literally destroy the soil organic matter, and the small roots from last season are killed, are actually destroyed by synthetic nitrogen.
They call it cleaning the field. But those small roots are actually the things carrying arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to the next season. It's how it's regenerative is those little roots. And then when you add phosphate, the plant goes, Oh no, I'm full. I have enough phosphate. I don't need to partner with micorrhizal fungi. No thank you.
And within a few seasons with all these stressors, there's no arbuscular micorrhizal fungi. There's no roots from the prior season with them on it. There's no spores. And now you've got a dead soil in that regard. And you could bring back all the soil food web members, but if you don't have mycorrhizal fungi, it's not coming back from your compost because it's not a saprophyte.
It's not its lifecycle. So the beauty of this amazing microscope is, I can see mycorrhizal fungi. And this is the first time we can see it on a microscope that's safe to have at home. And Elaine Ingham got to work with this type of microscope when she was at university coming up, but it was a mercury- based one. So it was dangerous.
And she is, as we all know, really concerned about safety and health. And so, she did her paper on it and then moved on. And then this technology emerged, only a few years ago. And so this technology emerged and no one used it. It was recommended somehow on a page that Elaine Ingham had a discount on.
I read about it and I read her original paper on this technology, and I was like, but it's LED now. I can work with LED and that's why I bought it. And then I figured all the protocols and figured out new things, like algae turns blood red. So if you have endophytic algae, algae that lives inside plants like chlorella is beneficial to plants, it shows up as a blood red sphere.
And you just instantly know what it is. Instantly. So the uses, and I could go on and on, it's amazing. But before this, we could never verify that the inoculant was actually real.
So you can look at this with the inoculant and be like, Yep, this is sections of root with glowing fungi. And then you put it on your plants and you check, even seven to 10 days later on your seedlings.
Are they glowing? Yep, they're glowing. You've had a full inoculation. I'll show up next year. Don't do an inoculation. I check your seedlings seven to 10 days, and the roots should be glowing.
Susan: Amazing. Cool.
Matt: That means it's regenerative 'cause it came back and that's the meaning of the word.
Susan: Exactly.
Matt: We get better and better.
And those things that make it better and better, they don't leave, 'cause Mother nature doesn't operate that way. Mother nature builds upon, makes better and better. And that beauty, that joy, that harmony. We can participate in and let it lead us and guide us. And that's really what I do.
Susan: That's lots of fun.
[00:43:26] Endophytes: Microbes Inside Plants
Susan: Okay, so now let's talk about something I learned about when I spoke to you the first time. This is the idea of endophytes. So you had said some of these microbes don't just live in the soil, they also live in the plants. They also live in our bodies as humans.
And I loved that because we know that plants take in nutrients from the soil, minerals, in liquid form. We know that the soil biology breaks down organic matter so that our plants can take in the nutrients. Awesome. Little did I know that sometimes these plants are taking in actual microbes, living things, into their bodies, and I think, wow.
It's like me eating something alive that stays alive inside of me.
Matt: Yogurt.
Susan: Yogurt. Oh, perfect. Perfect example. Yogurt. Okay, so these endophytes are certain types, you'll explain better, but there's certain types of microbes that are in the soil. They move into the plants. We eat the plants, or maybe we eat the fruit of the plants. I don't know if they would be in the fruit, but tell me about endophytes and why are they important?
Matt: So I'm gonna start here. This is for the gut. It's a probiotic and it's called Pro EM. And now this is for your plants. This is EM-1. This is EM-1, but it's pro, like probiotic. So this is Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Lactobacillus fermentum. And then Saccharomyces cerevisiae, so the yeast for making bread and beer. And then Rhodopseudomonas palustris. Now this right here, these are the same exact ingredients for your plants.
Susan: So on the left you've got a bottle for humans, and on the right you have a bottle for plants.
Both called EM. What does that stand for?
Matt: Effective microbes.
Susan: Effective microbes.
Matt: And they're simply lactic acid bacteria. Lactobacillus.
Susan: Yeah, like in yogurt.
Matt: And then there's yeast like in your kefir. And lactic acid bacteria is also in your kefir, in your kombucha.
So they're actually the most, when we're talking about these categories of food that you could eat, the most yeast and the most Lactobacillus, is literally your water kefir. And you can use that on your plants.
Susan: In a previous episode, we talk about homemade holistic sprays that you can make yourself.
I've got an article on the website about it. One of the possible ingredients is yogurt or kefir, as you call it. I call it kefir. Maybe I didn't know the right way to say it, but anyways, so amazing. So just like we enjoy and need these microbes, plants need them too. And so here we all through the show, we've got tips for people.
So we're going to, so these endophytes you can give to your plant. What would you do with them? Would you spray your plant with EM-1?
Matt: You would. And you would also, when you're soaking your seeds or waking up the bare root trees, right? Before they plant them to wake things back up, you would add the EM into that water so that they would be uptaken immediately into the plant. The thing with perennials versus annuals, annuals are way more microbe rich. Just like with fertilizer, you're gonna have the hungry corn, but then you're gonna have a more moderate tree that's Hey man, do not overwhelm me with fertilizer.
Susan: Oh, I get it.
Matt: So it's less microbes but it's the same exact idea. Yeah. You would soak your seeds for annuals in EM, just a little bit.
Susan: That is so great. That explains everything. And I like how you talk about the tree talking like hey man, because that's what my trees say to me.
Hey. Hey man, listen. They say, please don't give me commercial fertilizers because it's gonna freak me right out. Give me wood chips, give me compost. Don't give me those bottles of chemicals. And I'm like, yeah, man. I'm gonna do that. Yeah. So I love that. Alright, so just to wrap up, we've got lots of tips here. But you did mention earlier micorrhizal inoculants.
So tell me again, and I know you mentioned this, if you were planting a fruit tree, would you use it, how much would you use, and why?
Matt: Okay. Because this technology is coming out, people are figuring out, finally, that so many of the inoculants are fake.
Susan: Oh, no way.
Matt: So they're selling rock dust or yeast, and they're selling it as if it's micorrhizal fungi. And yes, we just said yeast is good, but that's not what they're paying for. They're paying out the nose.
And so, there are a few companies. Mykos. And then MycoApply is formerly owned by Dr. Mike Amaranthus. He's the guy who created the first micorrhizal inoculant ever. So MycoApply. They're the original.
So Mykos is also excellent. They're from Xtreme Gardening.
I've been using 'em for years, and the reason I use them for years is because I can prove it.
Susan: Yes.
Matt: I can see it. I can prove it. And they do propagules just like Dr. Mike Amaranthus pioneered and recommends. And that means it's root fragments. And something they also offer is Azospirillum. These two microbes actually work together.
This is a bacteria and this is a fungi, and they work together for plants. And that's the future. We're gonna be able to check inoculants before we use them. We're gonna be able to create partnerships around inoculants. And the future is, you're gonna have bioregional and crop specific microbes.
And that's gonna revolutionize everything. And part of doing that, is teaching people how to use these so that they can create their own biofertilizers and do quality control. Another part is hosting the R-Soil database, which is in process right now. We're getting close to internally testing it with our team.
But these ways of examining and allowing these microbes to do the work. Us observing and learning from them, and then verifying that we're getting the results that we're hoping for. With these things together at a community level with the R-Soil database, good, better, and best will become obvious. And the best solutions will go viral naturally as transparency community leads the way. So I'm really excited for the future. And all the stuff I'm doing is really just about creating that feedback loop, for clarity, for farmers and gardeners so that they can partner with nature at a deeper level and live more regeneratively.
Susan: Love it. That's fantastic. Now I'm hearing inside my head, listeners screaming.
[00:51:07] Microscope Technology and Its Applications
Susan: How much is the microscope? How much do you have to pay for a microscope like that?
Matt: It depends. So if you take my course, if you go to regenerativesoilmicroscopy.com and sign up, you'll get 37% off. So it's a $7,000 microscope.
You can do the math. It's thousands of dollars that you saved.
Susan: Wow. Okay.
And you get to take the course so you learn how to use it.
Matt: Right.
Susan: And how else can people find out about you? So share your websites or anything else that people need to know about. I know you've got many books, but maybe let's highlight one or two that's the most useful for a home grower.
Matt: You can get this microscope for $1,400 as well with just the base. Not this unit and not this. So you can get this microscope itself for much cheaper. I just have this part which is $3,000 and this part. I have all these extra bits on mine so that I can see that fungi.
The books that I've written around this, my Regenerative Soil Microscopy paired for that course. The new course starts September 15th, and that 37% discount is with that. There's also a special deal with upgraded lenses when we launch this next time.
This book, Regenerative Soil, is what it's all based upon.
So all the interpretation comes from here. All the natural cycles. This is the only book with the redox charts. This is the only book with all the plant nutrient cycles in it. I was the first to make them visual, which again seemed crazy to me, but because of that, people are doubling their yields with just the book.
Just this book, so it's really remarkable. So people are diagnosing their soil with this, understanding the soil deeper with this, so that they can do this better.
Susan: Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, that's great.
Matt: And that's available, regenerativesoilscience.com. And, also on Amazon Bestseller on Amazon and Barnes and Nobles and such.
So I just feel so much gratitude that I can be in a position to give people solutions that they can see the results, so that they can succeed and see that it's succeeding. Because for so long, people just put the micorrhizal fungi and never looked, and then bought it again next year. So I wanna save people some money.
I wanna save people some uncertainty too. I wanna give people certainty and that relationship. 'cause once you're in relationship with nature, it's not about me any longer or even what I've taught you. It's now all embedded in your relationship with nature and you're learning from nature now.
So that's the goal. Thank you for having me on.
[00:53:54] Conclusion and Resources
Susan: Thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it. That was a lot of fun. And for the listeners, do you wanna learn more about today's topic? You can check the show notes for a link to a full article. We're gonna write about this with extra information and links to Matt's website and his books and all that good stuff.
And if you're interested in tips or podcast updates or articles sent to your inbox. Be sure to sign up for my email list. You can go to orchard people.com to sign up, and it would be great to have you there. And if you have a question, once you get an email from me, just you can dash off your question and I'll answer it.
Anyways, that's all for now. Thank you so much for joining me for the show today, and I hope you'll join me again next month for another interesting fruit tree care topic. I'll see you then. Take care, and bye for now.