Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene function that do not involve changes to the DNA sequence. It is the study of biological mechanisms that will “switch” genes on and off.

Synthetic fertilizer interrupts the relationship between microbes and plant roots because the fertilizer gives plants “free” nutrients, so they don’t need to trade carbon for nutrients from microbes. When that happens, the plants keep a lot of that carbon for themselves, which means the microbes don’t get enough food to grow and reproduce,

Soils accustomed to synthetic fertilizer are like drug addicts: They need to be weaned off their addition slowly.

Holistic management focuses on the four ecosystem processes and our potential impact on them. Those processes are: the water cycle, the mineral cycle (which includes the carbon cycle), energy flow, and community dynamics (the complex set of relationships of biology within the ecosystem).

the C horizon, which consists of rock and other unconsolidated parent material that has not yet been weathered or decomposed into smaller particles. This layer provides the source material for B and A horizons.

What is hugelkultur? The word means “hill culture” in German and is a technique where woody debris is utilized as a resource

“You’ve got to stir the pot or it burns on the bottom.”

Second, and this point really struck me, he said cover crops are meant to be seeded in multispecies combinations.

storage ability is called effective rainfall.