Michael Melendrez NOFA Conference Speaker

Michael Martin Melendrez from Soil Secrets spoke recently at the NOFA Summer Conference in Amherst Mass.
He had a ” full house” of participants that came to hear him speak on
“Unraveling the Secrets of Humus”. The take home message is that although Soil Organic Matter is important for plant growth, the addition of ‘supramolecular’ humic substances are most important for sustaining available nutrients in the soil. These ‘supramolecular substances’ are nodes of pulsating energy that attract molecules of nutrients and water. The molecular structure of water is H-O-H. These substances can hold onto one thousand times there own weight in water, thus increasing moisture retentention in the soil. The other key to better plant health is making a mycorrhizal fungi connection with the seed before sowing or with the seedling’s roots when establishing plant to soil contact. The Mycorrhiza which stands for ‘root fungus’, attaches itself to the plant’s root hairs and grows until it finds the nutrients that the plant is lacking. It then returns the elemental nutrient, in solution back to the plant. The Mycorrhiza gets rewarded by the plant, whereby the plant exudates its excess sweet sugar solution,that is produced during photosynthesis, to its roots where it is taken in by the awaiting mycorrhiza. Therefore, both the ‘supramolecular humic substances’ and the mycorrhiza working in concert capture, store, and transport needed nutrients and water to create a sustainable food source and moisture for cell hydration during times of drought stress.
The ‘supra molecular humic substances’ can develop throughout the life-cycle of long term plant communities or land that has continuous plant cover so that photsynthesis and plant roots are generating these process throughout the growing seasons.

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