MINOT, N.D. — Jon Stika, a soil scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, says there is a bar in New Zealand where the following is written on a wall: “If we’re very nice to Mother Nature, she’ll make us some beer.”
Interpreting that phrase for farmers attending the Manitoba-North Dakota Zero Tillage workshop in Minot, Stika said making beer is a biological process, and so is making healthy soil.
“Both processes are totally dependent on biology. If you are going to make beer, you have to prepare a solution of sugar, water, the right of amount of oxygen … the right temperature. All these things to make a perfect habitat for the yeast … so the yeast can make beer out of it,” said Stika, who’s passionate about brewing beer.
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“As a brewer, we do everything to make those microbes happy…. Soil is the same way. Ninety percent of what you expect the soil to do is biological.”
He said farmers and ranchers need to realize they have a responsibility for the health of the organisms in their soil.
In other words, take care of the micro-organisms and they will take care of you.
“You’ve got to feed them if you expect your soil to function.”
