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lby-PauEJi Sachs
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INTRODUCfION Edaphos is an ancient Greek word meaning ground or soil. The study oC edaphology is technically the science oC,soil Crom the perspective oCplant growth or plant production. This book is an analysis oCthe natural soil system that detennines the environment CorpraniS':"''Hbwever-; plants, and all other living things, are also fa.Clocsthai trtfluence their o,ymenvironments. ThroUghO!'t this wN'k the importanceof'each factor to the overall con'dltions of every environment is stressed as comparative but not emphasized as superlative. In an ecosr.stem fonned by many different influences each ~es a criti~ component; if one factor is changed or eliminated the whole.system can change.
NOTES FOR AN ESSAY: COMPOST IS A COMMONS .\
Compost is a commons with the biospheric function to integrate the primary domains of air, water, and land-based minerals. Compost, as a physical substance, ~ts as a lynch pIn between the domains of air, water, and land-based minerals, which are also commons. Humus, a word that is often misunderstood and misapplied in both senses, refers to completely decomposed organic matter, and is the essential material that occurs in the end product ITomthe many bio-chemical and biological processes within the overall decomposition process. Strictly speaking, humus is about 95-97% humic acid and humates. One of its physical properties - and the one that makes it a sine qua non value li
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a ~t tI6Jt holdswaterlikea superefficientsponge.Withoutits presence,thereis onlya 's~s presen of on barrenrocksurfacesbathedonlyin air,not water;until
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us to the point (place) and with it a sine qua non colloidal state. Thus, in a mini-microenvironment comprised only of air, an indeterminate mix of landbased minerals, and humus retaining water, BIOLOGICAL activity is possible. Before the humus appeared at that point, those domains were elementary domains. NOW, INTEGRATED'BY THE FUNCTION OF HUMUS, a succession of single cell and multicell plants and animals can live at that point (place) and those domains can function on a quality level of existence rather than the level of mere substance. Those minerals dissolved in water in the presence of sunlight and chlorophyll is the fecund field where the whole food chain for all plants and animals and humans originates. The implications of this point on even a small patch of sandy clay with the presence of humus, is that the sandy clay will hold water and create a soil atmosphere and an abovesoil atmosphere in the immediate area around this patch. This humidity, also a new dimension of the air domain, in turn provides the function to mediate and moderate temperature, and consequently providing a stabilizing influence in the daily temperature cycle for that locale. This synergetic effect can be viewed as a rudimentary 'unit' of CLIMATIC value and is a necessary precondition for succession of any forms or species to occur. That is, a mechanism whereby climate and biological systems and the primary domains have a functional and interdependent relationship. "For the long term that concerns us here, the most useful returns will most certainly come from studies on the fundamental processes that link chemical, physical, geological and biological components ofthe Earth System.,,1 COMPOST!
1 W.C.
Clark Managing Planet Earth, Scientific American, September 1989, Vol. 261, #3 p.49