To farm successfully for the long term, farmers need to work with living soil. Microbes require a delicate balance of soil tilth in order to live and propagate. The term microorganisms encompasses a broad array of live organisms including bacteria, actinomycete, fungi, algae, protozoa, and nematodes. These decomposers play the crucial role of breaking down organic waste into usable nutrients, which are then held in the resulting humus . It is the organic matter in your soil that has naturally decomposed into a living storehouse of life and nutrients.
Humus has the holding power to retain cation nutients against leaching.
The soil complex is a trading place. It is constantly one cation for another, plus opposite charged nutrients can pull another nutrient from the soil solution. This trading place can be good or bad. Cations are the positive charged nutrients in the soil. The most common cations are Calcium, Magnesium, Potash, Sodium and Hydrogen.