These processes interact and affect each other. They never function independently. Change one and the other three will change.
Improving their effectiveness will increase the health of your landscape.
- WATER CYCLES in the environment:
Does the site absorb water like a sponge? Like concrete? Or somewhere in between? A sponge has high infiltration and porosity, slows runoff, and stores more water. A highly effective water cycle stores rain water in the soil in order to nourish biology between times of rainfall. The water stored in the soil also replenishes our subterranean water table. Soil that can store water has great surface cover, very deep-rooted plants, abundant soil life, good soil porosity, little compaction, good soil organic matter, and is biologically active. - MINERAL/NUTRIENT CYCLES in the environment:
Soil minerals and nutrients feed biological life. These cycles rely on biological decay of organic matter on the soil surface. A highly effective mineral/nutrient cycle needs deep-rooted plants, excellent soil cover, rapid biological decay of litter, high plant diversity, and biologically active soil. - ENERGY CYCLES through the living community:
Sunlight energy feeds all life above and below ground, including all soil microbial life, plants, and animals. Photosynthesis converts CO2 and water into a simple sugar that provides energy to build new proteins and complex carbohydrates, cells, and plant tissues. Highly effective energy flow requires vegetation that is green, vigorous, dense, diverse in both species and plant type, deep rooted, and actively growing through as much of the year as possible. This sunlight energy is wasted on bare ground, on overgrazed or overmown plants, or on surface organic matter that is not in good contact with the soil so is not actively biologically decaying during the growing season. A healthy energy cycle requires healthy, living plant roots and soil microbes. - COMMUNITY DYNAMICS can become more simplified or more complex. When communities become more diverse, the plant types that appear each year are responding to the increasing ability of the soil to support complex communities. If your community of plants is “early successional” it is usually simple and not very diverse, and changes substantially from year to year. Often these early successional communities are mostly hardy annuals that can tolerate low diversity and bare ground. We often see these patches of bindweed or thistle and attempt to eradicate them, when in fact they are signs of nature’s initial efforts to heal badly disturbed soil. Late successional communities, in contrast, are very complex and relatively stable from year to year. Late successional communities are a sign of healthy soil, and are made up of mainly perennials with minimal bare ground. These complex communities of vigorous and continuously regenerating plants produce and support a great complexity of microbial and animal life.
YOUR MANAGEMENT DECISIONS AFFECT ALL FOUR OF THESE PROCESSES