Soil loss is due to an imbalance in the earth's carbon cycle that is caused by less carbon moving from the air to the soil and more carbon moving from the soil to the air.
Carbon is transferred from the air to the soil by the growing roots and decaying bodies of plants.
Carbon is transferred from the soil to the air by both:
- living factors:
- metabolism (the eating of carbon, breathing of oxygen, and exhaling of CO2) of soil life: bacteria, fungi, and other organism (e.g. worms)
- metabolism of humans and animals1 and
- environmental factors:
- wind erosion
- water erosion
- oxidation
- metabolism (the eating of carbon, breathing of oxygen, and exhaling of CO2) of soil life: bacteria, fungi, and other organism (e.g. worms)
- metabolism of humans and animals1 and
- wind erosion
- water erosion
- oxidation
The GROW BIOINTENSIVE method builds soil by minimizing environmental factors and improving the balance in the carbon cycle.
Footnotes:
1) While the metabolism of soil life directly converts soil carbon to CO2, the metabolism of humans and animals keeps portions of consumed plant matter that would otherwise die and return to the soil—those consumed portions which are exhaled as CO2 and those which are excreted and kept from returning to the soil—from returning to the soil.
