Soil Fertility is a profoundly complex and sophisticated topic. We make no claims to understand it fully, just to have observed basic biological dynamics and relationships. The basic principle to be understood is that to maximize the health of a crop it is necessary to maximize the health of the soil that supports that crop. Like any biological organism, plants have specific environments that cause them to thrive, and others that are stressful for them. Our objective is to create soil environments that are most ideal for the plants that we are growing.

When this is achieved, the crop plant will out compete weeds that have different preferred biological niches. When the ideal soil environment is achieved the crop plant will as well as express immunity to bacterial and fungal diseases and resistance to insect infestation. This is due to the fact that the environment is ideal for the DNA expression of that plant, and it will therefore have the vitality to not be a suitable host for threatening insects, bacteria or fungi.

These claims will obviously raise the eyebrows of some. Let us go over the scientific principles by which these desired results are achieved.

First, in brief, the mechanisms by which disease, insect and weed pressures are removed.

Before explaining these specifics, it is necessary to explain one key difference between conventional soil science and practitioners of biological agriculture. That difference is how the soil is analyzed. Conventional soil science, when testing soil uses a very strong acid to break down all of the component parts of the soil. This is helpful in understanding what the soil consists of, but is relatively devoid of information about how a plant would perceive that soil.

Biological farmers send a soil test to a lab that uses a much weaker acid to see what minerals are biologically available in the soil. This acid is similar in strength to the plant root secretions that are how a plant makes available minerals for its growth.

Starting with this paradigmatic difference, biological agriculture strives for specific ratios of major minerals in biologically available form to facilitate the ideal environment for crop plants.

Let us return to the short explanation of how this understanding can be used to remove weed, insect and disease threats from crop fields

Insects

Insects have a simple digestive system, and are unable to digest complex sugars and proteins. Healthy plants that have the minerals they need to carry out their basic biological processes build complex sugars and proteins. This process is called Protein Synthesis. When the plant does not have all of the minerals it needs to carry out these processes, the incomplete molecular chains that can not be completed due to a lack of necessary minerals are used as well as possible in the plant growth process, but break down in the plant. This is called Proteolysis.

These simple sugars and incomplete proteins that naturally break down easily are ideal food for insects that do not have the digestive enzymes necessary to digest more complex molecules. From an evolutionary standpoint it is appropriate for insects to consume these plants, as they obviously do not have the resources necessary to produce vital seed for the next generation. They serve as natures garbage cleaners. It is only a problem when they are doing this in our fields!

The obvious solution to this problem is not to attempt to kill the insects that are serving a valuable biological role, but to strengthen the plants we are growing to such a state where they are no longer producing food for inselcts, but rather food for humans.

Weeds

When soil is looked at from an evolutionary standpoint we see different biological communities in it at different evolutionary stages