After her presentation, Bobbi Helgason, researcher with Agriculture Canada, was asked if adding amendments such as compost teas or sugar to soils can improve the health of microbial communities in agriculture land.
In terms of adding compost teas for an inoculum source, “my knee jerk reaction would be that soil microbial communities are already abundant and really diverse, and everybody’s competing for ecological niches. And so, generally speaking, based on the environment in the soil, all of those niches are full,” Helgason said.
She said cropping inoculants are different, because applied mycorrhiza and rhizobia are given an ecological niche in a nodule or root where they can compete and become useful.
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But adding a microbial inoculum to a soil is like adding a drop to a bucket that is unlikely to enhance soil health.
“It is unlikely there will be a lasting effect of dropping in that drop in the bucket. If you have a minor dysfunction and you’re trying to rest a system, perhaps that type of inoculation with a microbial consortium might be useful. But under general circumstances those organisms that are best suited for that environment are already there,” Helgason said.
In terms of adding a soil amendment such as sugar, the microbial community will use it, but there is unlikely to be any fundamental change to the microbial ecology.
“Soil organic matter composition is their home, it’s their food. So, I’d be skeptical that you could have, again unless you are addressing some major dysbiosis or dysfunction, that you would really have any fundamental lasting effect by those kinds of treatments.”
