Dissolved Carbon vs Organic Matter

[DirtMechanic]

And this in the news today:

Scientists learn how plants manipulate their soil environment to assure a cheap, steady supply of nutrients

The next time you're thinking about whether to cook dinner or order a pizza for delivery, think of this: Plants have been doing pretty much the same thing for eons.

phys.org

 

[DirtMechanic]

Here is a another link, a bit more of a whitepaper:

Science | AAAS

advances.sciencemag.org

 

[DirtMechanic]

So what is dissolved carbon? My lightweight looking has only come up with a filteration scale where very tiny bits are considered dissolved and larger bits are kept outside the nightclub so to speak.

 

[NigelJ]

I would have thought Dissolved Organic Carbon was made up of things like tannins, humic acids, lignins etc. I see from the internet that it is considered to be organic particles that pass through a 0.7µm filter; this would remove particulate organic carbon but allow some colloidal suspensions through. I think the dissolvable part is important in that this would allow faster interactions with microbes and other plants.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Thats 7 millionths (.000007) of a meter. And yes plant interaction is the point of the article re: available carbon (usable by root) truncates the relation of the root to the biodome. Thats actually disturbing the further I get away and look back. Surely that may exist naturally as a late summer shut off mechanism rather than a continual condition.


I am curious about very recent reports of "too much" or 13% OM + in gardens. It seems it takes carbon to shed dissolved carbon.

 

[NigelJ]

Agree that some of the statements appear counterintuitive, perhaps the high level of dissolvable organic carbon is related to high levels of other nutrients that the plant usually gets with mycorrhizal assistance. So the plant damps down the signals and saves the sugars used for "payment" for itself.
Perhaps further experiments could look at other nutrient levels as well as dissolvable organic carbon.
nb this is just thoughts while walking back from work.