Hello plant people, how are you all staying safe
Are you man sharing? My name is Cassidy and I'm a soil scientist on this channel, and I teach and share science and plant development in plants
And in today's video, we're talking about the idea of carbon sequestration in our garden
Regardless of what side of the climate change debate you're on, there is the potential for soil to control CO2
So I'll throw up a graph of what CO2 has looked like over the past 4,000, 5,000 years
I'll see what I can come up with. But essentially what it shows is spikes in CO2 with an immediate dry off or cool, cooling effect
So I think with the CO2 levels and what they naturally do without human prevention is scary
Because the reality is that as CO2 increases, regardless of the reason for it
the world tends to get warmer and then it goes into an absolute class freeze
like it's called an ice age. And that's kind of what triggers all the ice ages throughout humanity
And up here right now, like humans, homo, homo sapiens, or is it homo sapien sapien
whatever it is, we haven't experienced this yet. We haven't experienced an ice age in recorded history
We only know this from ice cores that we've taken over time
So regardless of what side you're on, the reality is that you want to control CO2
because if you can bring the CO2 down, you ultimately can control the environment
So we humans are really good at manipulating the world around us
and making the world around us suit us perfectly. And so using the soil as a way to engineer our world
I think it's terraforming, but in like a Earth sense. This is the solution. It does come down to soil
And I'm a device, because I'm a soil scientist. So we're going to look at what sequesters CO2 and kind of how to keep CO2 in our system
From there, I'm going to teach you in the next video how to actually calculate
how much carbon needs to sequester in your soil. Maybe whether or not you've hit maximum capacity
there is a maximum capacity you can hit, and kind of all that fun stuff in between
So there are two main ways in which carbon is sequestered into the soil
The first way being through the plants. So plants take up CO2 through our stomata
And we talked about this in our 17 essential nutrients video, where we talked about carbon as one of the 17 essential nutrients
So as that stomata opens up and allows CO2 in, ultimately what happens is 40%, which is like a mind-blowing number to me
It's just crazy every time I hear that. But 40% of all the carbohydrates or the complex carbs that they redevelop
inside of the plant are actually distributed to the root and are released as something called exudates
So exudates are kind of like the McDonald's meal, Subway, KFC, a smorgasbord of different foods
And the microbes that prefer KFC over McDonald's is what ultimately chooses to eat into the area
But the plant is smart. The plant knows what nutrient it needs at what time
So if the plant is in a foliage stage or a flowering stage
it may call out for more nitrogen-solubilizing or nitrogen-nitrifying bacteria over and beyond something like a phosphate-solubilizing bacteria
that they may call for in the flowering period. So say that nitrifying bacteria really likes the taste of McDonald's
The exudate released is going to taste like McDonald's, whereas the exudate released for phosphate-solubilizing bacteria
may taste like KFC, kind of what the plant does. But those exudates are made from carbon
So once they go into the soil, they don't come back out
So 40% of all the CO2 off-tanks that plants have goes directly back in the soil
So it's literally like a sieve that's literally capturing carbon and putting it back into our soil system
That's way number one. The second way is through fungi. And this is really starting to push up in the industry
whether it's through cannabis or through gardening. Even houseplants are starting to pick this up
PearlMake really brought this to the forefront of the gardening community through their HP inoculated mycorrhizae formula that they developed
And I did a whole video on that formula. But essentially what it comes down to is endo and astomycorrhizae
and their interactions with the plant. So as those hyphae tend to swell, they need carbon to build them up
And so all the hyphae in our soil is built from carbon
So for hyphae to expand, which it will expand, and it will interconnect every single plant in its area together
and make one massive mound, uses carbon. And so that's another way in which carbon is sequestered into the soil
So one of the biggest pieces of hyphae, mycorrhizal, fungi documented is somewhere in the US
I can't remember exactly where. The size of a football field, they can't pinpoint how old it is
It's between 2,000 and 7,000 years old. But it's just one single hyphae in that whole area
And it's responsible for literally sequestering tens of tons, like literally a shitload of carbon
So you're probably thinking, well, my yard, what's my yard really going to do for carbon sequestration
And the reality is that your yard alone, if it's 2.5-ish acres or one
hectare, it's on the low end. On the low end, where you're doing nothing in particular or special
it's capable of sequestering up to 10 tons of carbon in a year
Now, all of these trees, those are in areas that maybe don't have heavy winters like we do here in Canada
But ultimately, 10 tons a year is incredibly high. If you treat your soil right, especially in areas
where you have a growing season that lasts the entire year, California, I'm talking to you, you can sequester up to 20 tons of carbon
dependent on your soil type. Tudo, ponio. So all jokes aside, there have been studies done
One was done out of, I believe it was the University of Colorado
in their agriculture department. And note for it, it was NOAA. I have NOAA written down here
NOAA said that if we changed our practices in farming, all that fun stuff, foraging, land management
we could actually bring our CO2 levels down to a really nice level
And I mean, obviously, if you're in northern Canada, let them keep going up because we want that heat
But ultimately, we could reverse our CO2 levels within 10 to 15 years with a global implementation
So us in Canada, we don't let them go up because it's really cold
But the reality is that we're great at changing the world around us
And it's a way to change the CO2 in our world. Regardless of what side of the argument you're on
you want to control CO2 because it's always in an upward cycle
It's very, very cyclical naturally without human intervention. And we want to control that
We're human. We want to control that. Trust me. So one thing to note, though, one thing I do have written down here
that I did want to stress quite heavily, was the fact that your soil type will alter how much carbon can be supershaded
So sandy soil has a lower ability to supershed carbon. And it will get full faster than that of maybe a clay soil
Grasslands are really good at supershedding soil or supershedding carbon compared to that of maybe a forest
Where you are is going to determine what your ability is to supershed it
Something to keep in mind. So the next question is, how do we do this
How do we supershed carbon in our soil and make this work to our benefit
And why would you want to supershed the soil in maybe your lawn or your garden
or whatever the case is? And the reality is that even if you don't do this for environmental reasons
if you want better nutrient cycling, if you want better soil structure
in the case of a sandy soil or a heavy clay soil
the two very opposite ends of the spectrum, or if you want high yield, really green grass, all that stuff
you actually do want a substantial amount of carbon in your soil
You want your soil to be the majority of the work for you. So some things that carbon can do is increase cation exchange capacity
ultimately nutrients are cycled and the reason for that is through the microbiota
that ends up just naturally occurring in carbon high soil. The next one is toxin absorption
So your cation exchange capacity increases, your anion exchange capacity actually increases in the case of high carbon soil
And then you also end up with toxin absorption just by chance
just by chance of what's going on there. So that's for the chemical side
For the physical side of things, you end up with bigger, better structure
more flocculation, curation, all that fun stuff. There's also quite a bit of science to indicate increase in water holding capacity
That may not be necessarily the fault of the carbon in the microbiota
So much as the bacteria, protozoa, and mutants, but it's more so the fault of the hyphae, the fungal hyphae
that helps actually sequester or hold more water in the system rather than letting it run down to groundwater
or letting it run off to this surface. And then for the biological side
we end up with more microbial activity, so nutrient cycling, all that fun stuff
And we actually end up with more disease suppression in the form of fungal, bacterial, pests, all that stuff
Because again, microbiota, when it's out of balance, you'll melt. Because you'll end up with increased rates of things such as powdery mildew
for example, that can overwinter in our foliage. If we don't have enough bugs that are willing to eat defoliage
and can universally eat the spores that come with powdery mildew, we end up with an imbalance and then, ta-da
it ends up on our cucumbers and squash and all that fun stuff
So the ways to increase this comes down to things like crop rotation
Crop rotation is important because it helps support the rigids here in the plant
those enzymes, those estates that we're talking about being released. But ultimately also, we end up with different types of plants
So for example, if we plant a legume in an area, that's peas, beans, anything in the nitrogen-fixing family
we end up with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, right? Dodecium bacteria is what we call it
And that will sequester in the soil. It'll nitrogen-fix N2 gas from the atmosphere, pour it into our soil
The next year, if we plant a heavy feeder such as corn, for example
in that area, we end up with really great results because we have an excess of nitrogen that has been pulled out of the atmosphere
so it ends up in the liger and poisons the soil. And I think I've repeated this quite a few times
but if you are getting, doing peas, beans, scarlet runners, like anything in that legume family
then check out this stuff here. This is that rhizobacterium. You want to ground that if possible
Other ways to increase it is using the lactobacillus. So I did a blog post, I think there's a free printable for that
and I think I also did a video on it too, where I discussed how to make lactobacillus using white rice
And if you use that, you will have increased rates of decomposition
So if you're using compost or manures in your potting soil, like indoor health care, or if you're using it outdoor
using a lactobacillus inoculant on that soil surface is going to help with the decomposition process
and ultimately just the nutrient cycle in general. So that's something you can also add to the system
You can use inoculants, so the mycorrhizal inoculant. I'm going to get that Dinoco stuff and run some tests with that
I'll let you guys know how that turns out. But whenever you're looking for a mycorrhizal fungi
you want to aim for something that is either broad spectrum, has multiple different forms or species of mycorrhizal fungi
and is a combination of exo and angio mycorrhizal fungi. So you kind of want a combination of all of them
I found one product that I was really interested in getting, and then I bought it
It was coming over the border, but then the Canadian border services said no
So and it was like a... I'll post what it is here
I can leave a link for it down below, but I don't know if it works or not. But it was like bacteria, mycorrhizae, had a whole host
It was a really, really nice product that I really wanted to get my hands on
but unfortunately it's not for sale in Canada. So we have our stringent rules there
Another way to increase microbial activity is through the addition of compost and manure or my animals
So if you... There's my wild edibles on the channel. She raises rabbits
They're super cute, super adorable and cute animals. But even if you don't have a lawn
if you have a way of getting rabbits on it, I mean, you're going to see some really, really good results
But if you don't have access to that stock, then you would want to do a mix
So a compost and manure, and basically the same thing every year
So people always ask me, which one's better, sheep or bat buano or cow manure
Like you always ask me that. And the answer is all both of them. Every single one has a different set of microbes in it
So you should be rotating out the types you're using. One year, use cow
Next year, use sheep. Year after that, use swine. Literally, it does not matter what you use
Just try different stuff. Compost, if you're doing leaf mulch, one year, good
Do regular vegetable compost for next. Do mushroom compost the year after that
Do rare compost the year after that. Relocate through all of it
Because each one's going to have a different profile of nutrients. Each one's going to have a different profile of microbes by loadup
And you want to increase the microbe activity to really help your plant growth
and really help that rise this year down below. But that's all I have for this video here today
Next video, I'm going to show you guys how to figure out
what your carbon content in your soil is. The next video does not apply to the help plant people
Unfortunately, because you guys are a soil-less medium, I cannot help you determine what your carbon content is
Because the whole freaking thing is carbon content, unfortunately. But for those using any sort of soil, actual soil
I'll be able to help you with that. So if you enjoyed the video, be sure to give it a thumbs up
Hit that subscribe button. Let me know in the comments down below what you do to sequester carbon
tips and tricks that you use. And I will talk to you guys next time. Bye