Christine Jones has a new paper here.

"Failure to acknowledge/ observe/ measure/ learn how to rapidly build fertile topsoil may emerge as one of the greatest oversights of modern civilisation." The paper emphasizes the differences between the decomposition pathway and the liquid carbon pathway, and the consequences of the failure to recognize the difference.

Selman Waksman, a microbiologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1952 for the discovery of streptomycin, wrote this thorough and well-researched book on humus in 1936. It is available as a 21.6 mb pdf (text-searchable) download here.

Though the basics of carbon cycling, including microbial decomposition of soil organic matter and humus, had been established before, Waksman's work clarified the important roles of microbes in the formation and decomposition of soil organic matter. The book is a major milestone in the ongoing discovery of the carbon cycle.

"Humus plays a leading part in the storage of energy of solar origin on the surface of the earth."

This is an excellent presentation by Jay Fuhrer, who works for the Natural Resource Conservation Service in North Dakota, USA. He uses case studies to explain how innovative use of cover crops can boost soil health and productivity, and dramatically reduce the use of artificial fertilizers.

The Burleigh County Soil Conservation District website is a gold mine of inspiration and innovation for farmers of all stripes.

http://bcscd.com/?id=23 downloadable powerpoints about soil health

http://bcscd.com/?id=53 video interviews with farmers

Watch the global carbon cycle! The link below takes you to a NASA page that loads a 90 megabyte animated GIF file showing chlorophyll concentration (in the oceans) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI, on land) as the seasons change. Note: this page requires a fair bit of computer memory and good internet connection to load the image. It may step around slowly until the image is fully loaded.

http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/HTML/SeaWiFS.BiosphereAnimation....

The first two segments of a video presentation/animation of the carbon cycle.

Part 1

Part 2

Soil scientist Ray Archuleta shows a remarkable contrast in the responses of tilled and no-tilled soil to water. Note that the biological glue he speaks of during the second half, substances such as glomalin, are one of the important large compounds that contain soil carbon. The takeaway from this demonstration is also that soil organic carbon has huge leverage on the effectiveness of the water cycle. See also http://managingwholes.com/eco-water-cycle.htm

Charles E. Kellogg wrote an essay published in the United States Department of Agriculture's 1938 Yearbook of Agriculture (Soils and Men). Thanks to Abe Collins for the tip.

Kellogg shares profound insights on how the thinking that prevails in a society can affect its soils, its resource base.

"Do civilizations fall because the soil fails to produce -- or does a soil fail only when the people living on it no longer know how to manage their civilization?"

"It was not the soil of Rome that failed, but the men."

"The final exhaustion of the land follows, not precedes, the exhaustion of the people. In a final effort, exploited people pass their suffering to the land."

Soil and Society (3 Mb pdf file)

John Todd, of Living Machines fame and the New Alchemy Institute, has an interesting essay on http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/634 about the need for our urban and industrial society to understand the foundational role of soil, and the carbon cycle.

We are indebted to Darren Doherty's website regenag.com for the following information and video:

This is perhaps one of the oldest known films on the Keyline concept filmed on PA Yeomans' former farm 'Nevallan' circa 1955. Its somewhat remarkable from a few perspectives:
* It was produced by a Bank
* It was made at a time when fertiliser technology in agriculture was promising subsidised fertility out of a bag as opposed to conscious design and management of the natural elements
* It is 55 years on and we still have landscapes that rapidly shed water, soils that are eroding, rural communities shrinking, cities not feeding and watering themselves etc. etc. etc.

Keyline Farming 1955 from RegenAG on Vimeo.

In 1984 Sam Bingham wrote a short book for Navajo country called Living from Livestock. Though one or two items are outdated (such as the recommendation to build radial grazing cells) it is a wonderfully illustrated and trenchant introduction to the relationship of grazing to ecosystem function in an arid environment. Thanks to Sam we are able to offer it as downloadable pdfs. (Right click, Save As, to download.)

http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc... (about 8 MB)

or in sections:

http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...
http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...
http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...
http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...
http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...
http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...
http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/livingfromlivestoc...

and in French:

http://managingwholes.com/village/livingfromlivestock/vivredesontroupeau... (about 7 MB)