UARCD Manager Ryan Canart has an explanation for the picture with Conservation District board members displaying their undies – twice. Burying briefs was a light-hearted way to demonstrate the power of soil micro-organisms at work in the dirt.
In April they took the before photos. The first picture shows these clean new all-cotton undies; in the second, the briefs are mere rags, having been dug up at the end of just three months in the soil.
Canart says, “All the board members of the UARCD have dug up their undies, and have taken a comparison photo. The board undertook this fun soil health experiment to raise awareness of the life in the soil.”
Their assumption was the more biological activity in your soil, the less cotton would be left after 60 days.
He says, “More soil life should also correspond with better crop growth. We can do things that improve soil life or diminish soil life. Every farm practice will have an impact.”
Increased soil life also has an impact on water-holding capacity, meaning the ability to mitigate seasons of flood and seasons of drought.
Soil Conservation of Canada came up with the idea. SCCC chair and Ontario farmer, Alan Kruszel said, “Healthy soil is full of amazing, living organisms. It is what sustains us and is the foundation of a thriving civilization.”
Information from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations explains that soil is much more than the dirt we see. The living component is called the food web, and it is an ecosystem.
In healthy soil, bacteria and bacterial feeding organisms abound.
In soils that have received heavy treatments of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and soil fungicides, the beneficial soil organisms may die. Just as in the human gut, the balance between the pathogens and beneficial organisms can be upset, allowing opportunists - disease-causing organisms - to become problems.
Soil organisms are responsible for the decomposition of organic matter, how soil sticks together and the breakdown of toxic compounds (metabolic by-products of organisms and agrochemicals); soil organisms make available nitrates, sulphates and phosphates as well as essential elements such as iron and manganese. They are also responsible for nitrogen fixation into forms usable by higher plants.
And, of course, soil micro organisms will get rid of unwanted cotton underwear, leaving the elastic portion to linger a little longer – as evidence.
Upper Assiniboine River Conservation District board member have dug up their undies - and here’s what’s left. These undies show serious wear and tear from simply being buried in dirt, where soil organisms went to work on them. In an experiment that began three months ago, the Empire-Advance also ran a photo of board members showing off clean, new cotton undies, before they were buried in the soil.
