KINGSTON, Jamaica – The Agricultural Land Management Division (ALMD) is encouraging stakeholders in the agricultural sector to focus their efforts on protecting microorganisms to promote good soil health.

This effort forms a critical part of sustainable soil management efforts, which aim to strengthen soil health and combat soil degradation.

Senior Lecturer at the College of Agriculture, Science and Education (CASE), Spencer Jarrett, says both meso organisms and macroorganisms have a key role to play in both soil and plant health.

“Earth worms should not be killed. The meso and macroorganisms are to be protected and these primarily include your millipedes, and your macroorganisms would be more like your earth worms. The role they play is so significant, particularly your earth worms. What you will find with the earth worms, they dig holes, feed, excrete and have casts that they leave in the soil,” he said.

Jarrett was speaking at a JIS Think Tank, at the agency’s head office at 58A Half-Way Tree Road on December 11.

He said these actions result in the addition of some of the most important inputs and the creation of favourable conditions needed for soil and plant health.

“All of that causes not only the addition of organic matter, for example, but also aerates the soil so that whenever there is rainfall you have more infiltration of water movement, and so their roles are significant and they ought to be protected at all costs,” he said.

The consistent addition of organic matter is important for feeding and maintaining a functional population of microorganisms in the soil.

As the microbial population increases, the organic matter decreases due to their activity.

Low organic matter will result in declining microbial populations, as they depend on this type of matter for food. Soil with low organic matter and, in turn, low microbial presence, may not be optimal for sustaining plant health, which, in turn, can have implications for food production.

“You will have an inverse relationship between carbon and nitrogen, because as they die more nitrogen becomes available in the root zone area of the soil. Farmers must be careful with nitrogen because it can leech or move down into the soil. This is why it is so important to monitor the soil to know how the nutrients are behaving,” Jarrett said.

Meanwhile, farmers are being encouraged to get their soil tested through the ALMD to determine what their soil needs.

Soil testing is available at a subsidised cost and it is recommended that it be conducted every two years or based on the needs of the soil.

Soil Food Web Consultant, Lise Charron Alexander, who also spoke at the JIS Think Tank, said it can be difficult for farmers to acknowledge the presence of these organisms because they do not see them.

“We can only see them through a microscope. However, they are very numerous, very important and they all depend on each other. Bacteria tend to be the most numerous ones but they cannot feed the plant – but they will be eaten by other organisms which then release the energy to the plant,” she said.

Maintaining this complex ecosystem requires a careful balancing act that centres around a holistic approach to soil health.

“You don’t want to come and apply something that will kill the ‘bad’ bacteria, because at the same time it will kill the good one. You want to keep the balance. This is where the farmer has to understand that everything he does has an impact on the whole, so the more the farmers know about what’s going on underground, the better,” Alexander said.

“More people are understanding but we have to stop the fear factor. They are afraid of pests and infection….[Once] we feed the soil and the microorganisms, they will do their job,” she said.

– JIS

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