Adding Biology for Soil and Hydroponic Systems by Elaine R. Ingham, Ph.D., and Carole Ann Rollins, Ph.D., focuses on adding biology derived from high-quality actively aerated compost tea solutions to plant systems.

Elaine Ingham is president of Soil Foodweb Inc. and the Sustainable Studies Institute in Corvallis, Ore. Carole Ann Rollins is completing her doctorate in environmental policy and management at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Science is only beginning to understand the microscopic communities of plants and animals providing nutrient cycling, plant protection, and plant growth mechanisms. The authors use non-technical language to describe the basic biology and chemistry of nutrient-cycling and plant-growing environments. They also include simple explanations about how to add biology to any plant-growing system and guidelines for conventional, sustainable, and organic applications. Whether you're growing indoors in controlled environments and soilless media or outdoors in soil, this book helps you figure out methods for incorporating biology into your programs.

From the author:

The right biology enhances disease protection – so no more pesticides are needed. Biology causes nutrient retention – so leaching of nutrients ceases. There are now biologically-transformed nutrients available in the right form, in the right place, at the right time. Biology helps with the decomposition of toxins and gets rid of plant residues. Biology helps to maintain structure of planting media, improve root health, root depth, waterholding, and aerobic conditions.

93 pages