<p dir="ltr">Interesting . thanks for this.</p>
<p dir="ltr">However I already thought the reservoir of carbon in soil was temporary. It does cycle back to the atmosphere, but more slowly than the reservoir in living things, eg. forests.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I also think we will need a little more evidence to abandon our belief that humus exists !</p>
<p dir="ltr">Some of it may last for decades, some of it may last centuries, such as the lignin.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Therefore this new research does not change hugely how i saw it. Unless there is something i do not get about it which is quite likely.</p>
<p dir="ltr">As a reservoir, it is still significant in the carbon story, because up to half of the 1500 billion tons that it did contain has been lost to the air, owing to our mismanagement of land (deforestation and soil erosion, drainage of wetlands, peat extraction, ploughing, intensive farming....). So the return of that carbon to the soil through good land processes such as leaving wetlands alone, compost on farms, reduced tillage, reforestation, agroforestry -  is useful, as long as those processes are continuous, bringing that reservoir of carbon back to its original size.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I do not need to remind everyone of all the other win-wins of increased soil carbon, such as flood prevention, wild food chains from beetles and flies to bats and owls, microbial biodiversity, increased local food production, drought resistance, crop plant health, sources of antibiotics.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But even just from the global-carbon point of view, it is significant, alongside renewable energy, reduced energy demand etc.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Fred</p>
<p dir="ltr">.</p>
<p dir="ltr">On 12 May 2016 14:43, Adam Ormes Court <ormus23@gmail.com> wrote:<br>
</p>
<blockquote><p dir="ltr">><br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p dir="ltr">> ></p>
<p dir="ltr">> ></p>
<p dir="ltr">> I usually wouldn't post this sort of thing on here but thought this was a sufficiently monumental piece of information to merit doing so... <br>
><br>
> From a post by Toby Hemenway on FedBook:<br>
><br>
> Some amazing news on the soil science front. Humus doesn't exist. Several recent articles are showing that humic and fulvic acids and many of the other humic components of soil are artifacts of the alkaline treatment that is used to measure humus content, and don't, in fact, exist in untreated soil. When OM is measured using non-destructive methods such as NMR spectroscopy, no humic compounds can be found. Organic matter does not degrade into "stable" humic components, it simply decomposes into a continuum of smaller and smaller carbon compounds. There is constant, slow turnover of carbon in soils, not a semi-permanent trapping of carbon into "humus." Humus, meaning a stable form of carbon visualized by alkaline extraction, seems not to exist. It's an artifact of the lab method. This is kind of blow-away news for those of us who teach soil science--and it's a good lesson on how the methods we use determines what we see. Teachers, start revising how you teach soils, and stop talking about humus.<br>
><br>
> Most of the articles on this are behind journal paywalls, but some of the abstracts are available. One article is Lehmann, J.; Kleber, M. (2015-12-03), "The contentious nature of soil organic matter", Nature 528:60-68. There is a short video based on that article linked below.<br>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n6emCNEmKg">></a><br>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n6emCNEmKg"><font color="red"><b>MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "www.youtube.com" claiming to be</b></font> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n6emCNEmKg</a><br>
><br>
> --<br>
<i>> In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model /</i><i> You create a new model and make the old one obsolete /</i><i> That, in essence, is the higher service to which we are all being called. //</i> Buckminster Fuller<br>
><br>
><br>
</p>