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| Microbes are very much a unifying theme in agriculture. I see some fundamental parallels between my two jobs as a dairy nutritionist and farmer. When feeding cows, I'm actually feeding & managing rumen bug populations, which in turn feed the cow. As a farmer, in most instances, I'm money ahead if I can do the same thing - manage microbes in the soil to more efficiently free up nutrients to feed the crop. I think we're going to get much better at this in the years ahead. Managing this microbiology holds a lot of promise, in my opinion, but progress won't happen overnight. Whenever I talk to ruminant nutritionists, they all agree that we only understand the tip of the iceberg regarding what really goes on in the rumen, and I'm certain soil scientists would say the same thing about the interface between plant roots and soil life. | |
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microbes redux and climate
