Soil gets no respect.
We step all over it.
Track it onto the living room carpet and we’ll likely get yelled at.
But like sunlight and water, it is the source of all life on earth.
Once we thought it was a simple collection of minerals that plants could feed on but we’ve come to understand that soil is teaming with life — billions of microscopic bacteria, fungi, and viruses in each tablespoon.
Those microbes interact with each other and with plants.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
In agriculture, we know how pulse crops and microbes work symbiotically and how other organisms create plant diseases.
We are only scraping the surface of the plant-microbe interface. Yet even with this nascent understanding we know that is good for farmers and their crops to encourage a healthy and diverse soil biosphere.
The importance of life in the soil spreads far beyond agriculture.
Recently we learned its importance in helping to combat antibiotic resistance, a major health concern.
Many antibiotic drugs were developed from soil microbes. Microbes have been attacking each other with antibiotics since life began and, it follows, many soil bacteria have resistance genes to protect themselves.
Scientists have also learned that some bacteria have genes to overcome that resistance.
The science journal Nuture recently published a paper from a team led by microbiologist Gerry Wright of McMaster University that discovered a molecule in a common soil fungus that overcomes a large part the resistance that has made many antibiotic drugs ineffective.
Much work remains to determine if the molecule can be used in a safe therapy that revives the effectiveness of antibiotic drugs.
But it illustrates the known and yet to be known incalculable value of life in the soil.
So respect the soil and its life. We are all standing on something more valuable than gold.
