By Lynn Moss

In the November newsletter was a bit on using men’s Y front underpants to test soil, based on an anecdote in Tim Smedley’s book  “The Last Drop “. The rest of the story is both funny and instructive. The movement (so to speak) appears to have started in California ( where else?)  with the California Farmers Guild  in 2017 challenging other farmers to bury cotton undies in a field and in two months dig them up. First Oregon responded to the challenge, then Cornwall England and it went from there with the hashtag #Soilyourundies”. 

After two months in healthy soil, the teeming microbial life will reduce the undies to tatters and leave only the elastic waistband intact. In Smedley’s book, he and contract farmer James Alexander went out to test this method on three different farm sites where the Oxfordshire soil is heavy red clay.

The first farm was a traditional “plough, fertilize and pesticide” farm and the topsoil was crumbly and  dry.  There had been little rain in the past month and the soil was compacted by heavy machinery so any rain that fell did not soak in but ran off across the road.

The second farm was organic with sheep, corn and oats and lots of pretty wildflowers. This site was plowed annually to a depth of 15 – 20 cm.to kill weeds, then compost was added. Crops were sparse and short, and the red soil clearly showed darker compost soil that had not been broken down and taken into the soil because of insufficient microbial action.

The last field  had not been ploughed in  twenty to twenty-five years.  It had no bare soil and  a low cover of grass, clover and moss. Of all the fields, the soil here was the hardest to dig; a handful of soil showed lots of roots and the “mould” of fungal mycelium which interacts with the plants to exchange food, water and sugars in a symbiotic relationship. Sheep could eat off the winter cover crop and add nitrogen as they grazed and ate.

Fast forward to midsummer when Tim and James returned to dig up the underpants.

The conventional field yielded a dirty, crumpled pair with a couple of holes.  The organic field yielded a pair that was chewed and full of holes but more dusty than dirty due to the soil’s dryness. The final, no-till field sported healthy, dense ears of tall corn and thick, golden wheat and had spongy soil and loads of micro fungi. The bedraggled, tattered underpants unearthed there were a mess of damp soil, white micro fungi and purple patches made by protozoa or nematodes– and, of course, the elastic waistband.