General
Bogs, Nutrients and Carnivorous Plants
Wandering along the boardwalk that traversed the sphagnum moss bog, I excitedly called out to my husband, “Hey look! Here’s a bunch of those pitcher plants – you know, the carnivorous plants that eat bugs!” In another month or so, there will be even more carnivorous plants popping up in the bog such as Sundew…
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Walking Barefoot is Good for You
Getting your hands and feet dirty is good for you. Studies have shown that having direct contact with the soil has a positive effect on our body and mind. We are connected to the soil through the nutrients transferred to the food we eat and the support of plants that create the oxygen we breathe.…
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Becoming Better Blueberries
We compared the nutrient content of harvested blueberries treated with our VITAL Blend 5M and found an increase in antioxidants (11%), dietary fiber (33%), sugar (3.1%), and protein (125%). These results were from plants receiving only one application of VITAL Blend 5M Soil amendments. The application rate used for our 5-micron sized biochar blended with…
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Exploring Earthworms and Soil Compaction
Walking to my car this morning, I was forced to step over “drowned earthworms” scattered on the sidewalk and driveway, following the night’s heavy rain. I would expect an even higher number of dead earthworms from soils that do not have very good water drainage. My thought was that the rainwater fills up the available…
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Spring Rains bring Pussywillows
In late March/early April, Pussywillows push out silky gray-white catkins on mahogany colored branches. Pussywillows are a type of willow (Salix), all of which grow fast and have separate male & female trees. The Pussywillow does not have a typical flower; the silvery hairs insulate the female part (pistil) and the male part (stamen) against…
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NAKED Char’s amazing amount of Surface Area
Just one cubic foot of our biochar, NAKED Char, increases surface area within the soil by over 550 acres. The amazing amount of surface area is due to two things: wood feedstock and fast, high temperature pyrolysis. We have been telling people how porous our NAKED Char is and it’s been validated by scientific data. …
Read MoreVITAL Blend improved Hops yield in Michigan
In early 2017, we applied VITAL Blend granular and VITAL Blend 5M liquid soil amendments to young hop plants in a couple of rows on Bell’s Brewery demo plot. The plantings were done near the Kalamazoo location of Bell’s Brewery. We top-dressed the granular applications near the base of the plants and then used a…
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Building Soils and Relationships in LaGonave Part II
Mark and I recently went to the Haitian island, LaGonave. We got down and dirty in the island’s agriculture with the help of a mission group called Starfysh (http://starfysh.org/). The goal for working with the people on LaGonave is three-fold: To help improve their potting soil composition for seedling transplants by initially mixing VITAL Blend…
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Building Soils and Relationships in LaGonave, Part I
We shipped our Biochar and VITAL Blend to LaGonave American BioChar Company intends to help improve LaGonave’s impoverished soils and increase their food production. We followed our shipment to the island recently (end of October) and arrived for the very first time on LaGonave to start a project that I believe will be changing Mark…
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Cowboy Fungus
The diversity of soil life is considerable, so it should not be surprising to learn that there are fungi that have lassos like cowboys taking down steers at a rodeo. Or that other fungi create nets to capture food like fishermen. These fungi have evolved to create traps when a.) their decayed food source is…
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