"Earthy"

Microbes produce the rich earthy smell of soil.

Yesterday I was on a walk, listening to an audiobook called Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte. Mr. Forte mentioned how we store things in our brain, like a filing system, in a way we can remember things, like the word “earthy.” The mere mention of the word brought back so many memories of digging holes, gardening, planting, doing all sorts of yard work, and a particular moment of visiting a young farmer back in 2009.

My former company started working with a fertilizer company in New Mexico in 2008 through one of our dealers. The first farmers we started selling to were growing those famous “Hatch Chilies.” The farm was a third-generation farm in Deming, New Mexico. My partner and I were doing a tour of farms that day and were visiting this farm. The farmer, a young man in his twenties, was so excited about the results of using our probiotics on his crops. We all climbed into his truck, and he kept talking about all the positive changes he saw and wanted to show us in his field. We must have driven about 40mph out to one of the fields. He stopped the truck, ran out to a field, bent down, grabbed two handfuls of soil, and stuck his nose into them, sniffing deeply. He popped his head up and said, “this is the first time I can remember this smelled like soil!” We laughed, not entirely understanding the importance of this …yet. He explained that all these farms around him, including his, used their subsurface irrigation systems to inject fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides. And, until recently, he could smell the chemicals in the soil, but now it smelled “earthy” like soil should smell. This meant the microbes in our product produced more of a humus content in the soil, which was demonstrated in increased organic matter in the soil analyses.

The book also brought back a tiny part of my recent mold certification classes on odors in buildings. Most people would think the musty and earthy odors in the buildings come from molds. It doesn’t; it comes from the bacteria in the home. This was a second “ah ha” moment for me. This should mean that the bacteria in the soil give the soil its “earthy” Smell. Sure enough, a Northern Illinois University professor has studied this subject, {The} “Smell of soil is due to the smell of two small molecules produced by small organisms. These small molecules are known as geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol (MIB). These compounds are mostly produced by bacteria belonging to the genus Streptomyces.”(Meganathan, 2023) The earthy smell of soil is called petrichor. Sure enough, it is created by a beneficial microbe!

Reference:

Meganathan. R. “What causes the characteristic smell of soil?” https://www.niu.edu/clas/biology/about/faculty/meganathan/smell-of-soil.shtml#:~:text=Smell%20of%20soil%20is%20due,belonging%20to%20the%20genus%20Streptomyces.

I offer consulting services in probiotics in Agriculture, Bioremediation, and Wastewater (industrial and municipal). I’ve been working in those fields for 25 years. Please get in touch with me to book some time if you need help or insight into any of these fields.