The Dirt on Soil with Dr. Jason Stuckey

I am left to say this by myself here. Oh, yeah. Welcome to another. Renee, you need to help me with this. Oh, my goodness. Well, this is one of the first episodes we are recording without Reverend Dr. Robert J. Hildebrand. Rob is gone out of United States of America. He is pursuing his chateau dream, and I hope we're going to have an episode of talking about his chateau and his experience. But I am excited today. I am actually really excited. I look forward to this quite a few times. We've postponed this episode for quite a while now, but we have a very, very special guest again today on MU Talks. So, Renee, please introduce our guest.

Yes, everyone, this week on MU Talks, we are excited to introduce you to Dr. Jason Stuckey. He is a soil scientist by training and is an expert in the processes that govern the fate and transport of metals and nutrients in the environment. Prior to being here at Multnomah University, Dr. Stuckey researched the mechanisms by which soils retain carbon, which is important for soil fertility as well as climate regulation. Dr. Stuckey, we are so glad that you're here with us today. Please educate us about soil. Why are they important, and why are they important to so many of the global issues that we're all hearing about and we're all facing right now?

Well, Dr. Stuckey, before you start educating us, I want you to know that my background is in computer science and my master's in intercultural studies and Then in the PhD in Instructional Design and all this, and not. I mean, the only thing I know about soil is that I step on it. And you are welcome to educate us, mostly because I'm fascinated by your area, but also because these days I think we need to educate ourselves more than normally in the history of the world. I think they're just great, great developments that have happened that I think pushes anybody to learn more about this. So welcome, Dr. Stachi.

Thank you very much. Yeah, so you mentioned we probably should define what we're talking about. Right? So there's a distinction between soils and dirt, Right? So some people get confused. And soil scientists, we tend to push back on the dirt connection. So dirt is what you step on. It's what's behind your ear, those types of things. But it's soil out of place. Right. But soil in its proper place is a living, kind of breathing, crazy thing that's going on in there. That was just to set the definitions distinction straight there. I come from a soils background, as you mentioned. I started at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and they have a soils program and I took my first class, and I was really hooked, you know, and I had a broad interest in the earth itself. And I realized, you know, I got to start somewhere. Might as well start at the surface, right? And so. And it's kept me busy ever since. And it's just. Yeah, it's been a lifelong pursuit for me. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the amazing projects, properties of soils that people might not really think about, and then we can perhaps connect those to some bigger picture issues. And so one thing that drew me to soils was that it's a system where I could see fundamental or basic sciences applied to it. So it was chemistry applied, it was physics applied, it was biology applied to a system. I could see the connection. So when I was taking these fundamental classes, like physics, chemistry, biology, out of context, I had trouble connecting what was I building this foundation. I know it's important. You're telling me it's important, But I want to be able to connect this to something. And so soil has really helped me to do that. And I think one of the. The things that soils does is it exposes our limitations a little bit. So we as humans, we study things. You'll take a course in physics, you'll take a course in chemistry, you'll take a course in biology. But in nature, those start to become artificial distinctions. Right. There's processes happening in the soil that involve physics, involve chemistry, involve biology. So taking a class in chemistry, it's helpful for us to kind of categorize things and categorize our thinking. But I really like how soil kind of confounds us a little bit, Confounds our efforts to totally try to understand it. And so I'll try to give you a few examples of these. So if you take. We'll call this a physical property of soil, the first one that is called specific surface area. Okay. And so you're probably, like, familiar with the concept of surface area. Like this table. Yes. This has an area. It's the area of the surface. Right. And it's just the length times width. Right. When you. When you put specific on there, you are giving that. You're normalizing it or you are making it. You're dividing it by mass, typically. Okay. So it's the amount of surface area that a mass of something has.

Okay.

So like, this table will have a mass, or it'll have an area per gram or area per kilogram. Okay. And so soils have that as well. So soils, they contain particles, right? You're probably familiar with sand, right? If you're on the. Walking on the beach, right, that's all sand, but then there's a smaller subset called silt. You might be familiar with that term. So the. The Palouse, that's windblown silt in eastern Washington. Right. So that. Then you have the clay. Okay. You're probably familiar with that. That's the smallest. That's the smallest. So sand is the largest. Silt, medium clay is small. And so they each have a specific surface area range associated with them. So just to try to help you to visualize this, so picture you're holding a handful of sand, and you want to add up all those surfaces. You take each sand grain, and you're going to add up the surface area of that one and add it to the next one for the whole handful. And say that you lay that out on a plane. What do you think the surface area of a handful of sand will be? Okay.

Yeah, in grams or what are we.

Oh, in an area. Yeah, an area. Is it going to be like the size of the wall?

Square feet. Okay. Oh, interesting. It was from one. From one fistful.

You add up all that area, and then you lay it out in the plane. Like. Okay, like, what's the area of that?

Renee, what do you think? What do you think? Oh, one fistful. It doesn't matter how. Making fist.

Yeah. Right.

Wow. Okay, I'll just. I'm gonna go for it, right? Let's say three feet.

Okay, so I'm just gonna go for it. Yeah. So three feet by three feet.

Three feet by three feet.

Yes.

Okay, so that's.

Let me. Let me. Let me get you. Renee, what do you think? I went for three feet.

Oh, I'm. I'm gonna go way smaller. I'm gonna go like. I'm gonna go like a foot.

Okay. Renee wins. Okay, so it's.

Renee wins.

Okay, so it's really about this piece of paper. 11 by 11 piece of paper.

Okay.

Is going to be the surface area of a handful of sand. Okay, now. Okay, now we're moving down to silt. Okay. So now you have a lot smaller particles, but there's a bunch more of them.

Okay.

Okay. Ooh. So what if we have a handful of silt? What's the equivalent area that that would cover? Okay.

Wow, this is a tricky one. It has to be. It has to be bigger than. Than the sheet of paper, right?

Yeah.

Same fist.

Yeah, but you got a lot more particles. A lot. There's more area there.

I'll say. I would say double.

Okay.

I'm Just looking for that. Okay, Triple it. Double.

Yeah, I think double it sounds good. Okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna agree.

All right. It's actually. It's gonna exceed that. So it's gonna be about a ping pong table.

A ping pong table?

Yeah. Yeah. So a handful of silt.

Okay.

Gonna have equivalent area of ping pong table. Now, clay.

Okay.

Okay, so now we move down to clay. Handful of clay. Yeah.

Okay.

What do you think?

Well, your permission to actually not embarrass myself again on talks. Like, just.

Just lay it on.

Okay. And it's even smaller, right?

So. So we've gone from. From the paper to ping pong table. So we're going to be. It's going to be bigger.

I mean, let's just go all out. It's.

Yeah, it's like.

It's like a soccer field.

Wow. Wow. That's right. Yeah. It's basically like a soccer field or a football field. Oh, my goodness. Austin Stadium and Eugene or whatever. You got a handful of clay that has as much surface area as a. As a football field. Okay. So that is. That is specific surface area, right? And so what is going on in those surfaces? Right? Like you got. There's so much surface area. So what's happening in there? Right? So that is a physical property, but then it also turns out to be kind of a chemical property as well, because it really kind of dictates how reactive like the minerals are in the soil. So the more surface area they have, the more kind of real estate there is for them to react with other things. Right. And to transform other things. Right? And so that brings me to the second property, which is charge, okay? And so we have this physic we're calling a physical property, which is specific surface area, and then this chemical property, which is charge, okay? And so it turns out that soil minerals, they have a bunch of charge, like positive negative charge built into them, okay? And so the clay minerals are mostly negatively charged, okay? That's built into their structure. And then on the edges, they have both positive and negative charge, and that depends on the ph, like how much hydrogen is around. So the more negative or the higher the ph, the more negatively charged the edges are going to be. The lower the ph or the more acidic, the more positive they're going to be the edges. So you have these clay minerals with all this surface area that is charged. Okay?

Okay.

And so it turns out that nutrients that plants need are charged, right? And so no wonder we have plants that are growing in this medium with A ton of surface area that can pull water toward it. Right. So water is polar. So it has kind of a negative end and a positive end. So that is attracted to these surfaces and to these charges as well. Right. And so you start to see you have this medium for plant growth that is pulling water toward the plant, holding water for the plant. And. And it's also that water contains nutrients which are also charged, and a lot of them are positively charged. So if you think of what plants need, like ammonium is positively charged, potassium is positively charged, calcium, magnesium, these are all positively charged. And so you have this negatively charged soil that can attract these plant essential nature nutrients, have all that surface area for that to happen. Okay. And then if you throw in organic matter, so decaying plant material, as you think of a good garden soil, it's dark, that comes from the decaying plant material. Organic matter, it has tons of surface area as well, and even more so than the minerals, and it has positive and negative charge, so it can hold on to everything. Okay. And so you're starting to see how the soil is this wonderful medium to support life, to support plant growth in the base of the food chain. Then if we go to the third property, so we took the physical property of specific surface area, which is also like a chemical property, we have charge, which is a chemical property. And then we have the biological property I want to talk about is the microbial population. Okay. So we have microbes, like bacteria, you have fungi, all these different organisms down there. And so again, I want to put you on the spot again, you go ahead. Yeah. So if you take like a sugar cube volume of really healthy garden soil, how many microorganisms do you think are present in that one sugar cube worth of soil?

So if we were not face to face, I would definitely Google this and then give the answer, but I'm going to go for 100,000.

Okay, good. That's okay. Yeah.

Renee.

Just a thousand.

Okay, so it's more like a billion. Okay, so yeah. So.

Billion.

Yeah. So you guys wrote 10 to the 3, 10 to the 5 range. So it's 10 to the 9. So nine zeros a billion microbes in that sugar cube of healthy garden soil. And so now you start to picture this medium that we have, which this football field, size of surface area, with all this charge, with billions, like more people that are on the planet, Billions of microbes in this handful of soil. Right. If you put that all together. And so what, you know what's going on down there? Like, who doesn't want to study that, right? I mean that's a whole, there's a whole rodeo, you know, it's a wild dance floor down there. Like, who knows what's going on in there, right? So the, the microbes, what they do is just like other species, like they, they need to eat and they need to breathe, right? And so they're eating and breathing process that transforms nutrients so that, that they get energy from transforming nutrients and they, they start to, they can assimilate some of these into their bodies, right? So into their cells. So all that is, is happening. And so if you think about nitrogen, for example, right. They're going to be taking, so you have last year's residual crop or like is breaking down into the, into the soil and microbes are governing that process. Like they're breaking that down and they're getting energy from that and they're releasing plant available nitrogen, they're releasing ammonium, releasing nitrate, right? And so then that, that nitrogen can cycle back and help the next crop grow, right? And so there you have billions of these things transforming all these essential nutrients. And so it's just, it's a crazy, crazy place, right? And it's just a really exciting system to study and it really could, you could do it for a lifetime.

So I'll go with a quick follow up. I don't know if Renee has, because I'm blown away. I am absolutely blown away. And, and I know, I know this, this subject is quite far away out of my day to day, you know, expertise and what I do in life, but I think it's so connected to us in so many ways. You did mention something that, and I was intrigued to ask, to ask you your alternative. You said in a healthy soil, what's the alternative? What is unhealthy soil? Because that I think is going to lead us to a larger conversation on where what do you see the challenges of 21st century. And I think Renee can ask that question. But I'm just curious. You said in a healthy cube of the whole thing, but what's the unhealthy part?

So a soil is really this kind of basically almost a living entity. So a healthy soil, typically, if you want to know how to improve the fertility of your soil, you add organic matter. That's the first thing you do. A soil that's deficient in organic material, is deficient in nutrients, is deficient in that charge that the organic matter helps to build nice structure that allows water to be retained and to move through it. And so really the basis for a healthy soil is the organic matter content. And so a soil that is depleted of that is going to be an un, an unhealthy soil. So you're going to have a lower microbial population in climates that are too dry or this type of thing. Or if you think of just like beach sand for example, typically not much is, is growing there. Right. So you don't really have a lot of the clay that's there that, that needs to hold, that can hold water that plants can. So the water just flushes through it. Right. So, so these types of SO soils with a good amount of clay, sand, silt, like the mixture of them with the organic matter, that's, that's a healthy, a healthy soil.

Yeah, is. So we, we've talked about healthy soil and unhealthy soil and then kind of in the beginning we, we had this like teaser of talking about food security, climate change, these things. Where does, where does, where does the health of soil meet one of these? Like where, where have maybe you spent the most time examining where our, the health of our soil meets one of these?

Yeah. So if you have, you look at some of the global environmental challenges that we face in human health related challenges, one of those would be water security. Right. And so soils and sediments below them. So soil we typically think about the top two meters or shallower that's below that would be sediment or rock depending what, what's down there. And so soils help to regulate water quality. Right. And so they are, we don't want to treat them this way, but they are actually kind of natural filters. Right. So they're going to start to filter contaminants. They also filter microorganisms. And so the deep groundwater is typically relatively microbe free relative to the surface. In areas where I studied a lot in the Mekong Delta, South Southeast Asia, in that greater part of the world, Bangladesh, there's a problem of drinking surface contaminated water. And a lot of that is due to pathogens that are at the surface. Right. But as that water filters moves through the soil, the deep groundwater is basically pathogen free. Right. So water helps to clean our water, soil helps to clean our water systems. And so that's a really important role that it plays.

So you, you see the greater challenges of the 21st century all connected to soil. So food security, water security, energy security and climate change. I'm curious and then I'm going to have a follow up question on faith and science and the intersection of those because I think in your area, I know you to be a man of faith, actually I'VE always admired the purity of your faith and the, you know, the deafness of your faith. And so I'm excited about talking a little bit about faith and science because it's something that we need to explore every single time we have a chance. But how do you see, how do you see this the greatest challenges of the 21st century really impacting even energy or climate change?

Yeah. So there's a kind of a term floating around that connects these different challenges and they're given in different orders, but it's basically food, water, energy and climate. Right. So food security, energy security, water security and climate change, those are all the big four. You might throw in biodiversity, some others as well, but those are some challenges that, that we face as a society. And so soils are really connect, they're all connected to each other and soils are connected to each of them. Right. And so I think probably the food security is pretty straightforward. Like we need, we need to grow crops and improve efficiency of production. And so that, that is naturally connected to the soil. And I talked about. And that requires water. Right. And so water quality and quantity are obviously related to the soil as well. Energy security. So we have, usually there's an opportunity cost in terms of what we, we grow something at the expense of something else, or we might grow something and use it for one thing, then we can't use it for something else. If you go to your gas tank, you see that 10% ethanol, that's a corn based product. Typically we can produce energy rich material from the soil. We can also eat that material, we can feed it to livestock. So we have choices in terms of where that, that material goes. So in terms of that, that's an energy connection with the soil as well. And some, some researchers have also, they've started to kind of say take mine impacted lands and rehabilitate them, start to add in plants that might be nitrogen fixers to bring back fertility to the soil and then actually grow plants that can be used as biofuel so that the soil is starting to regenerate some natural resources from degraded lands. Right. So that's another kind of connection that can be made there and then in terms of climate. So if you think about the, the, there's a, there's a set amount of carbon moving around on human time scales. Right. So in our life, there's, there's carbon that's moving around between the, the land and the, the, the shallow ocean, the, the atmosphere. It's called the, the global carbon cycle. Right. And so the largest pool of actively cycling Terrestrial carbon on the planet is in the soil. So there's actually more carbon in the soil than all vegetation and of all carbon in the atmosphere combined.

Oh, wow. Interesting.

Let that sink in for a second. Right. Look at outside all that carbon that there's. You add up all the vegetation, all.

The carbon in the atmosphere, Amazon and all, you know, the everything, there's still.

More in the soil.

Oh my goodness.

So if, so if to the extent that there are so like CO2, carbon dioxide release like that has shown a long term track tracking with global mean temperatures. Right. Those usually go together. And so the soil plays a big role in regulating the amount of CO2 that's in the environment, in the atmosphere. And so a lot of it is stored in kind of wet regions where the carbon doesn't really break down very quickly. So we think about, you've heard of frozen soils like permafrost, there's a lot of carbon that is stored in those soils. And so if those regions start to warm, then we're going to quickly start to release more and redistribute the carbon. Right, okay. And so there's a lot of work going on into how to manage our soils to kind of retain carbon, retain fertility in the soil. And the more carbon that's in the soil, the less that's in the atmosphere. Right. So that's another area of work that soil scientists work on as well.

Yeah. Is this information, all of this is fascinating, right? And I mean, the depth of what, you know, compared to what I just learned, you know, is infinite. But I'm wondering, is all of this information only useful to soil scientists? Like how can this information be useful for me and how I make decisions or actions or, or how do I, how do I hold on to this and actually use it today without becoming a soil scientist?

Yeah, right. Well, I think if you think about, maybe you start with where your, your food comes from. So the, the food that you eat takes. Requires water, it requires energy. Right. And it might require, you know, trans energy and transport at the different. There's a, you know, modern agriculture, it's very energy intensive typically. And so, but there are different forms and so you do have some. I guess one thing is based on the type of food that you buy, kind of, you can start to make choices about the energy load that that carries or the water, etc. So buying things in season versus, you know, getting, you know, your oranges when you want them or that type of thing. Right, so those are, that's something that is probably something that you deal with every day in terms of the choices you make.

Yeah, yeah.

And you have compelled me to actually get more educated in this because I think my wife is really passionate about this and she forces us to buy things in season and, but to understand the reason behind it and how powerful it is and how actually can change the whole ecosystem around you to make sure that you kind of force that rhythm with you. And when I was in Israel, Israel, you cannot buy junk food. They, you can only buy food that is in season right there. And it's a loss for some people, it's a significant loss to not be able to buy junk food anywhere on the street. But what a beautiful thing for the, for the country to know this is, this is how we operate. Right. So it's very powerful. When I was in, in Africa for the last 10 years, I, I co lead a non profit called Grain for Pain and we deliver sorghum. Sorghum is, is the, the primary grain used in South Sudan and for many reasons I'm not going to get into that. I'm pretty sure you're familiar with sorghum and why they use it and how full of nutrients it is. But one of the, one of the phrases that I remember strongly was the agriculture that they do or the way they farm, it's called God's way. So they do farming God's way where they really replenish the earth, they give it the rest that it needs. And it's such a rich, informed environment in places that you think, okay, we're just like, like let's do whatever we can. But there's a, there's a tremendous logic for it and it stayed with me. Farming God's way.

Right.

And it leads me to my next question and, and unfortunately our time is almost done because I would love to talk more about this and mu talks audience, you're getting this for free. I mean people pay a lot of money to come to multi university to get this information from Dr. Jason Stuckey. But, but here's something for you as we open a conversation and we start this new year with, with wonderful, wonderful realization of what we have around us. And what a great exercise. I'm going to do this exercise myself. Just grab a, a fistful of dirt. Just grab a fistful of dirt and remember that, that stadium size specific surface area right there. But faith and science this has been. Have you encountered the debate yourself? Have you seen how. And I'm not asking about the larger subject that faith and science is. I'm asking for you personally Just Jason, how do you reconcile the two? How do you actually do they complement in your life? Do they. I just want to hear your thoughts on faith and science.

Yeah, that's something that, you know, going into this being a Christian first and then going into science as a profession, you know, I started to see there's always tension there or, and it was often portrayed as outright conflict or in incompatibility. Right. And so here I am, as I'm going through this is something I gotta, I have to, to deal with. And, and so yeah, it, there's a lot of ways I could go with that, but I, as, as I've proceeded through this, this journey, which is still, still journey, you know, working through all these things is that I think that the, the Christian faith and the worldview really provides a solid foundation for, for doing science and that I wouldn't be comfortable with doing science without it actually. Like, I, I think, I think if, if you do science without it, you can do it very well. And they're non Christian science are way better than, than I am. But I think if you, you think about some of the fundamental presuppositions, things that we have to presuppose in order to even think that we can gain knowledge, those for me come from Genesis, from the beginning, right? That's really the foundation for that, that we bear God's image. And so what is God like, right? He is rational. And so what reason do we have to trust our own senses? What reason do we have to trust that we can even get at the truth? You have to really presuppose about what is your nature? What kind of thing are you? And what reason do you have to believe that you can actually access the truth? And is there a truth? And how do you even know that? Is that objectively out there or is that all subjective? And so like these fundamental questions to me really go back to fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, right?

Because I think it's difficult to come from the society where a pluralistic society where it talks about subjective truth and you get into your science when you're trying to get to quite fixed reduction, even though it's reductionism, right? In the way you reach your formulas, but it's a fixed formula that you can question unless you, you build your own. So, so how you reconcile is difficult. And growing up in, in Eastern Europe, I saw it was very, very difficult. I have never met, I have never met one farmer or somebody that lived on the countryside to be an atheist. Not one. Their faith was simple, was pure but seeing the cycle of, of the rain and the seasons and the growth and all this, there's something that connects us to the.

That fact.

Fact that there's something behind this. There's something. A bigger picture than this. I have not seen one to argue with you, you know, eschatologically or theologically or scientifically that, you know, there's not no such thing as a notion of God. They had a very pure faith in terms of seeing all that with their own eyes. Maybe grabbing a fistful of dirt, of soil. Well, we. We cannot let you go. And I'm very thankful that you came to MU talks. I. I'm doing this in a podcast to let everybody know that I've. I've re. I've requested and insistent with Dr. Jason Stuckey that he puts out a really good, great course in MU talks and MU+SO modoma plus dot com. And now that I've made it here on the MU talks, who knows, maybe I've actually constrained Dr. Jason Stuckey to join. To join Dr. Sarah Gall and put a really, really good course. I mean, I would love to see this in a video format for it to. To unpack and maybe grab a fistful and show us some of the images, because I think it would be great. But let's do a little rapid fire. Can we do a little rapid fire? We're going to do a little rapid fire to get to know you before we let you go. So I'll start with the question to give Renee time to, to warm up. Just a minute of rapid fire. So if you could. If you could change one thing in the world right now, what would it be?

1.

Any department, any area.

Wow.

I guess clean water access.

Okay.

Yeah. What is your favorite place you have been to in the world?

Wow. The first place that comes to mind is Torres del Paine. It's in Patagonia, southern Chile. Okay. Did a little backpacking trip there. Oh, wow.

Very nice. Favorite food?

Wow. I. I do like a good rib eye on occasion. Okay. Yeah. Okay, let's see. I like carnitas. Okay. Yeah. Thai food is good. Yeah.

This is reaching back a bit. What was your least favorite college class?

Least favorite college class? Wow.

You just love them all.

He loved them all. I'm pretty sure.

No, I. I think it was probably one of my chemistry class. I think a lot of it just depends on the instructor, you know, so. So I had to mentally recover from. Okay. Chemistry classes. Yeah.

Oh, my goodness. And you have a beautiful family. Is it four? Four children?

I have four yeah, four children.

What would be. What would be some careers that you want to see them going into? I'm just curious, would you want them to get into, literally into soil or, or. Or just choose their own path?

I guess my default is more to see them do their own thing, kind of. Kind of venture on their own. And. And the oldest is eight, so I'm still trying to, you know, figuring out kind of where that. That's going. But she's an avid reader, and it makes me want to read more because I just see her reading all the time. So. Yeah, well, kind of my mind is open at this point. Yeah.

Okay. Well, thank you for being with us, Dr. Jason Stuckey. We have been educated by you in this regard. We have to keep this discussion open, whether it's an MU plus monoma plus course, whether it's getting you back to really unpack and go a little deeper into the subject, as this is becoming quite intrusive into our life. Food security, water security. I mean, we can have an entire discussion just on water. One of my favorite documentaries that I watch these days is that the whole scientific community came to the conclusion that they didn't fully understand water. And that was fascinating for me because, you know, we thought we figured out H2. Okay, let's figure it out. But there's so much more to it. Water has memories. Memory. Water has memory. God forbid, all the water that I've been on, it has memory and all the things that are happening in that water. I mean, just all the things. But how fascinating, right? So we can take one of these and unpack. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for sharing your. Your wisdom with us. And we look forward to seeing you back on MU Talks.

Thanks for having me.

So let's. Let's. Do I have to do Rob's? Rob's. I can't believe this. Rob, you're making me do. Do this. I cannot believe this. But just so you know, the views and opinions expressed on MU Talks are in no way affiliated with multiversity, but we are connected, but not affiliated with Malawi university. So as Dr. Rob says, don't sue us. Thank you. Thank you for being with us.

It.