Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I enjoyed the beginning of Teaming with Microbes, but as I went on through it, I began to be uncomfortable with some of its tone. The authors seemed to be wanting to put their attachment to non-organic industrial lawn and garden products behind them, but they also seem to be doing advance work for a new bio-tech industry, rather than just proposing to work "with" the soil life in an organic way. They relate [p.69] that one of them wrote a weekly gardening column for 30 years and never once mentioned mycorrhiza "out of sheer ignorance." On the same page they write, that it was only in the 1990's that the term mycorrhiza started to "creep into the agricultural industry's lexicon, much less the home gardener's." Most organic gardeners are aware that it is with home gardeners and "soil pioneers" progress is made in soil science, and not in an entrenched industry. On p. 125, with the section "a quick look forward," they write, "Given the advancing scientific techniques, the high degree of interest in the subject, and the human as well as the monetary implications of usable bio-products, it is certain more will be taken up - more and more often - as additional tools for restoration and maintenance." In other words, more industry involvement. Further, on page 126, the authors disclose their wish for the bio-tech development of "an endophytic fungi that rids the lawn of dandelions." The development of such a fungi that kills dandelions could be an ecological disaster. Besides the value of dandelions as a food source for many nations outside of the U.S., dandelions are a nitrogen fixing soil improving plant. Then too, did the authors consider that the bio-tech created endophytic fungi might adapt to also kill other root vegetables, such as sugar beets, and carrots? And by what means could such a fungi be kept from spreading outside the neighbor's lawn. Again, it seems to me that although the sub-title of Teaming with Microbes is "The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web," the authors do not have the understanding of what organic gardening really is. I'm going to return my book, and find another better one to understand soil dynamics and maintenance.