Carbon Comes in Many Forms

A 2-step endothermic reaction that occurs in the leaves. Energy from the sun is stored in the form of a simple sugar-glucose.

Through myriad reactions, the glucose formed during photosynthesis is resynthesized to a wide variety of carbon compounds, secondary metabolites of carbohydrates, proteins, organic acids, waxes, oils, and more.

Carbon atoms can link together to form long chains, branched chains and rings to which other elements can join.

Carbohydrates provide energy for grazing animals, starch in grains provides nourishment for livestock and people.

Estimates are that, depending on the crop, up to 60% of the plant's energy can be exudated through the roots during peak growing periods. In the simplest form, this is carbon being put back into the soil.

As food for microbes that in turn bring minerals back to the plant, these carbon compounds are essential to the creation of topsoil and are determined by the volume of plant roots per unit of soil and their rate of growth.

Adding organic carbon is one thing, keeping it there is another.

Organic carbon moves through various pools in the soil. Some are short-lived, and some last for centuries. Carbon additions need to be combined with land management practices that foster the conversion of relatively transient forms of organic matter to more stable complexes within the soil.

In the humification process, soil microbes resynthesize and polymerize labile carbon into high molecular weight stable humic substances. Humification cannot proceed unless there is a continuous supply of microbial energy.

If humification does not occur, the carbon exuded from the plants simply oxidizes and recycles back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

Here again, diverse and robust biology is critical. Bacteria can consume the simple sugars, but it takes fungi to consume and process the oils and lipids essential for this humification process to occur.