This Stuff Is WAY More Important Than I Thought!

We've been a fan of cover crops for a while now, but new information suggests that they may even be more important that we thought! Join us as we share some of this new info on the keys to soil health and how cover crops can create healthy soil with their roots.

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[millionpumpkins]

Garden Fundamentals put together a nice presentation that summarized John Kempf's work on his Advancing Eco Agriculture channel. He's got longform podcasts with researchers and practitioners backing up the claims made here.

Root exudates are the number one milkshake calling all the soil life to the yard. That's why cover crops are so important, and do NOT use up soil nutrition. Plants are the organisms that transform solar rays into carbohydrates which they inject into the earth to call specific microorganisms to their roots. The roots take in bacteria in a process called rhizophagy and use super oxide to strip them of their cell walls which are the real plant food. The plant broods the bacteria and programs them to go out into the soil and collect the plant's nutritional needs on their new cell walls. John Kempf likens it to plants "ranching" the bacteria.

In addition, plant bodies harbor symbiotic microbes called endophytes. These are able to use plant-produced compounds, and manufacture plant-required compounds many of which assist the plant in becoming pathogen-resistant.

Once you start this process of discovery, gardening will never be the same! Matt Powers has amazing images in his new book/videos on Regenerative Soil Microscopy.

Cheers and blessings

[billymckenzie]

We planted a cover crop last year, after our spring/summer garden quit producing because of the heat, here in zone 8b. Planted some dried beans from Walmart (black eyed peas, pinto beans, and red kidney beans). Picked a large crop of beans before the first frost, mowed the plants with a mulching plate on the mower and tilled it all in to the ground. Looking forward to seeing if we see any benefits with this years spring garden. We got the cover crop idea from David Goodman’s YouTube channel.

[adamschaafsma]

Weeds do a job, we don’t have a comprehensive knowledge of what they do. But there is some interesting research regarding weeds and the mineral and microbial elements they accumulate in the soil. I hope this research continues.

[marvinbrock]

He’s a smart dude.. Been watching a lot of his stuff. I stopped pulling plants up this year.. stopped tilling too… tons of hay and grass clippings keeping the soil covered..

[WhatWeDoChannel]

Thanks for this! I actually thought of you when I watched the Garden Fundamentals video on exudates because you always champion cover crops. He has challenged my thinking about a lot of stuff in the garden. I know he has a background in chemistry and I believe he is associated with the University of Guelph, he has written a lot of books on gardening. His garden myth busting videos are epic! When he was talking about weeds, I think he just meant compared to bare soil. I’m afraid I have to tell you that your Dogs bucket is starting to look like a pink poodle😂😇.

Klaus

[Spike-wo]

I spent $10.00 on rye grass on a small garden, WOW ! THE ROOTS WERE THICK AND NUMEROUS, , LIKE 10 OF THOUSAND ROOTS

[FrogRogers]

I started using sweet feed ( horse and mule feed ) in my little garden. It has molasses and ground up grains plus wheat and oats. The wheat and oats will grow, but you can spray them with a little vinegar later on to burn them back. Seems to really help but we'll see later next spring and summer

[billypabst]

I've watched Garden Fundamentals for about a year or two, it's one of my favorite gardening sites. He also has a great video on gardening myths. He also does a lot of research, doesn't just regurgitate stuff from other sites.

[robclower]

Yes! This is how plants get nutrients from soil (sand, silt and clay) without fertilizer. The plants can taylor the exudates to stimulate particular types of microbes that will bring them the nutrients they require. This is a very basic view of the soil food web.

Thanks for the video Travis!

[rosebrown]

I picked up cover crop seeds from the local library not knowing the purpose of them but after researching i decided to plant in my large bed. My garden looks like a forest ground now.

[AngelPrissy]

Your video reminds me of the documentary about plants talking and communicating. I think it's called The Secret Life of Plants. Ive watched some of the videos of the fellow you mention and it rings true about exudates and everything you said here.

[jSheapullen]

Love Garden fundamentals and your summary!

[legalyzeit]

watching your channel and some of Charles Dowding, Charles doesn't even dig, he wont pull plants he cuts off the plants and leaves the roots, vegetables and weeds the same. really seems to help the soil, thanks for the video Trav! we Love the content

[Maria-qlfc]

I'm no botanist, no PHD in soil biology but I've been to the woods a few times. The forest floor is always covered with years of leaves and other stuff and will have shrubs, briars and many other plants growing through all that. If you pull back a couple layers of those composted and partial composted materials you'll see strands of mycelium and the soil underneath smells so good, and is healthy and dark with no help from humans. God designed it that way and it's perfect for the forest, but you'd be hard pressed to duplicate that in your garden.

[gardeningsimplified]

I think it's about time for a new Dog's bucket.

[DaveK]

I've seen quite a few people who pull the weeds, roots and all, and put them in buckets of water and let them ferment, rot, whatever. Then they take the liquid and use it as fertilizer. Not sure if that increases microbes or not but it should.

[shaunlloyd]

I’ve been using a deer food plot mix that I got from tractor supply. It’s call Comeback Kid and right now it’s $30 for 3.75lbs and I’ve seen it cheaper, it is in season right now. It has 4 varieties of clover and 1 variety of alfalfa. 👉 I’ve also been using whole oats horse feed from tractor supply. A 50lbs bag is $18.59 and it is my go to cover crop. Easily germinates, grows fast, and can be mowed a couple of times if needed. When it starts to die off before I want it to, I’ll just get another bag.

[joeyl.rowland]

Cover crops not only increase microbes in the soil, cover crops also add carbon to your soil. The more carbon you have in your soil, the better your soil will be as the carbon will attach to other elements such as nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, magnesium and sulfur, all the macro nutrients that all plants are dependant upon.

Exudates from sorghum Sudan grass is known to help to give corn crops a lot more vigor if you kill the sorgum sudamgrass and turn it into the soil and plant your corn within 35 days.
Downside you have to increase nitrogen as the sudangrass debris will tie up nitrogen for about 30 days after your corn is in the ground.

[lisabooker]

I just stopped by to see how the cutest little tader time chiddlers on all of YouTube are doing? LOL
Thank you for sharing. Blessings to all.

[Saltwatercowboy]

Super cool seeing senor Trav spread no till microbial cheer... love it. Taking a machete or loppers to our old crops costs minimal time and we can stack compost bins PROPERLY with exact % layering with the chopped crop residue. Win/win.

Stay frosty stay blessed everyone🤙🇺🇸