Subject: Re: Glomalin, the Unsung Hero of Carbon Storage

From: Steve Diver <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 10:56:18 -0500

Also see:

"Glomalin—Soil's Superglue"
Agricultural Research magazine | October 1997
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/oct97/glomalin1097.htm

And especially, the ARS web page on Glomalin and
Sara Wright's work at:

Glomalin - an Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Glycoprotein
http://www.barc.usda.gov/anri/sasl/glomalin/glomalin.html

Of special interest is the USDA brochure, a 5-page PDF:

Glomalin, A Manageable Soil Glue
http://www.barc.usda.gov/anri/sasl/glomalin/brochure.pdf

Best,
Steve Diver

"Lawrence F. London, Jr." wrote:

> ----------
> From: ARS News Service <[email-masked]>
> Reply-To: ARS News Service <[email-masked]>
> Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 09:15:03 -0400
> To: ARS News subscriber <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Glomalin, the Unsung Hero of Carbon Storage
>
> STORY LEAD:
> Glomalin, the Unsung Hero of Carbon Storage
> ___________________________________________
>
> ARS News Service
> Agricultural Research Service, USDA
> Don Comis, (301) 504-1625, [email-masked]
> September 6, 2002
> ___________________________________________
>
> Glomalin, a recently discovered major component of soil organic matter,
> stores about a third of the world's soil carbon, offsetting industrial
> pollution. This is according to a recent collaborative study by scientists
> with the Agricultural Research Service and the University of Maryland
> (U-MD) at College Park. The study was partially funded by the U.S.
> Department of Energy.
>
> The study was done by Kristine A. Nichols, a U-MD soil science Ph.D.
> candidate and technician at ARS' Sustainable Agricultural Systems
> Laboratory in Beltsville, Md., along with colleagues Sara F. Wright and E.
> Kudjo Dzantor. Wright, an ARS soil scientist, discovered glomalin in 1996,
> and Dzantor is a U-MD soil scientist.
>
> Glomalin is a sticky protein produced by root-dwelling fungi and sloughed
> into soil as roots grow. By gluing soil particles and organic matter
> together, it stabilizes soil and keeps carbon from escaping into the
> atmosphere. In an earlier study, Wright found that glomalin serves as a
> corrective to global warming because it increases with carbon dioxide
> levels.
>
> Nichols and colleagues detected large amounts of glomalin in soils from
> four states, showing it to be a major part of organic matter. The glomalin
> weighed 2 to 24 times as much as humic acid, which was previously thought
> to store the most carbon. But Nichols found that humic acid only stored 8
> percent of total soil carbon compared to glomalin's 27 percent.
>
> Wright has found glomalin in soils from around the world, ranging in
> weight from less than 1 milligram per gram (mg/g) of sample to more than
> 100 mg/g. She found the highest levels in Hawaiian and Japanese soils,
> indicating that some soils might be able to store large amounts of carbon
> in glomalin with a turnover rate of 7 to 42 years. She is on a team
> investigating underground carbon storage in tropical forests, thought to
> be major carbon reservoirs.
>
> For more on glomalin, see the September 2002 issue of Agricultural
> Research magazine, online at:
> http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/sep02/soil0902.htm
>
> ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research
> agency.
> ___________________________________________
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> * [email-masked] | www.ars.usda.gov/is
> * Phone (301) 504-1638 | fax (301) 504-1648

.

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From: Steve Diver <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 10:56:18 -0500

Also see:

Best,
Steve Diver

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From: Steve Diver <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 13:49:53 -0500

"Lawrence F. London, Jr." wrote:

> I, too, am interested in guilds, the permaculture concept. I would be interested in
> reading a definition of guilds and seeing websites with examples of them.

Yes it will be very helpful to get a clearer idea with
accompanying examples of permaculture guilds and how they
relate to or differ from ecological guilds; how they can be
designed and established; expected and hoped-for results.

Agroforestry, permaculture, polyculture, intercropping,
mixed cropping, farmscaping, planned biodiversity,
understory, overstory, multi-story, stereo farming, canopy
layers, riparian buffer strips, border strips, shelterbelts,
hedgerows, alleycropping, forest farming, forest gardens,
multi-tierred, multi-layered.... and so forth; all these
inter-cropping systems that involve perennials and annuals
and woody plants and herbaceous plant mixtures can
probably benefit or generate additional synergy from the
concept of a permaculture guild.

Here's one item on polyculture that came to mind. The
summary page below points to a 115-page PDF report.
The acknowledgement section provides an interesting
story about Bill Mollison that provides insight to the
origins of permaculture with its emphasis on ecological
design.

"In November 1959, watching marsupial browsers in the
floristically simple rainforests of Tasmania, I wrote in my
diary: ‘I believe that we could build systems that would
function as well as this one does.’"  .....  Bill Mollison

Polyculture Production Principles, Benefits and Risks
of Multiple Cropping Land Management Systems for
Australia
RIRDC | Australia | May 2001
http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/ORG/01-34sum.html

Best,
Steve Diver
ATTRA

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