Ever wonder how to gauge the quality of hay or alfalfa? Here is one quick easy way- a shovel. While the ground is wet but not waterlogged simply pull up a shovel full of topsoil where the hay grew. Now count earthworms. The more there is... The more valuable the hay grown is.
This works because the ultimate test of grass quality is nutritional content. The higher the nutrition per blade and the more balanced... The better feed it is. Nutritional content is built primarily by soil microbes. Applied fertilizers have little to do with it. The soil microbes are responsible for making nutrients available to the plant. Things like bacteria and fungi create the elements that plants can use.
One way to judge how healthy the microbes are is by the quantity of earthworms living with them. More earthworms mean more microbes. So ultimately how many dozen earthworms are in a shovel full of dirt tells you how healthy will be the animals living off plants grown in that dirt.
As a side note... Ever wonder why it is necessary today to feed animals direct minerals? How did the animals survive without that? The answer is... We must supplement today because so few hay and alfalfa growers understand that the minerals present in their hay is not from fertilizer... But microbes. The hay and alfalfa commonly available today is so low in nutritional content that the animals fall to malnutrition without supplemental minerals. How much better to give them natural grass grown in ground teaming with tiny unseen life that feeds us all!
This works because the ultimate test of grass quality is nutritional content. The higher the nutrition per blade and the more balanced... The better feed it is. Nutritional content is built primarily by soil microbes. Applied fertilizers have little to do with it. The soil microbes are responsible for making nutrients available to the plant. Things like bacteria and fungi create the elements that plants can use.
One way to judge how healthy the microbes are is by the quantity of earthworms living with them. More earthworms mean more microbes. So ultimately how many dozen earthworms are in a shovel full of dirt tells you how healthy will be the animals living off plants grown in that dirt.
As a side note... Ever wonder why it is necessary today to feed animals direct minerals? How did the animals survive without that? The answer is... We must supplement today because so few hay and alfalfa growers understand that the minerals present in their hay is not from fertilizer... But microbes. The hay and alfalfa commonly available today is so low in nutritional content that the animals fall to malnutrition without supplemental minerals. How much better to give them natural grass grown in ground teaming with tiny unseen life that feeds us all!
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