Teaming with Bacteria: The Organic Gardener's Guide to Endophytic Bacteria and the Rhizophagy Cycle

Teaming #4

by Jeff Lowenfels

A must-read handbook for organic gardeners and small-scale growers. 

Thanks to research conducted over the last few decades, we know that most plants get a significant portion of their nutrients by attracting endophytic bacteria—bacteria that live inside a plant’s cells. Through a complex process, plant cells harvest the nitrogen and other nutrients in a bacterium’s cell wall and expel the bacterium’s protoplasts back into the soil where they rebuild their cell walls, start feeding again, and repeat the cycle. Interesting, you may think, but why does this matter? As it turns out, it matters a lot. The bottom line is without endophytic bacteria, plants get fewer nutrients and cannot develop properly.

Teaming with Bacteria not only explains the rhizophagy cycle; it shows you how to harness this amazing process to increase productivity and plant health. In addition, endophytic bacteria increase a plant’s tolerances to abiotic and biotic stresses and controlling pathogens. This is exactly what we need if we are to deal effectively with climate change, soil loss, and feeding a rapidly burgeoning population. Gardeners, farmers, and other growers must adjust best practices—and develop new ones—to ensure that the rhizophagy cycle can operate at its most efficient pace and that the right endophytic bacteria can do what they are supposed to do.

Just as Teaming with Microbes introduced gardeners and growers to the soil food web, Teaming with Bacteria adds to that science by sharing the latest research on endophytic bacteria (bacteria that live inside plants) and rhizophagy (plants “eating” bacteria)—discoveries that have profound implications for the practices of home gardeners and small-scale growers.
 

Genres: Gardening, Science, Plants, Nonfiction, Science Nature, Agriculture

172 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 12, 2022

About the author

Jeff Lowenfels (Lord of the Roots), is one of the most humorous and entertaining lecturers and writers on the organic gardening circuit. He is a reformed lawyer who went back to his childhood roots to become a leader in the organic gardening movement. He is the author of a series of award-winning and bestselling books, three of which have become bibles for organic growers worldwide, including Teaming with Microbes, Teaming with Nutrients, and Teaming with Fungi. Lowenfels has also penned the longest running garden column in North America and was inducted into the Garden Writers of America hall of fame after serving as President. He is the founder of “Plant A Row for The Hungry,” a program which has resulted in millions of pounds of garden produce being donated to feed the hungry every year. He lives in Anchorage Alaska, where cannabis has been legal since 1975.

Reviews

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a lover of gardening, I found this book to be very interesting and informative without being over the top. I love that the book included a basic instruction/review of what bacteria are, their make up and behavior, so that the topic of rhizophagy could be better understood without feeling like a college course or degree in biology was required. Great read that I would recommend for any gardeners bookshelf so that you can reread it on a regular basis. Thank you to #NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

[David Bush · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are several mistakes in this book. But the author is not a soil microbiologist, he is a pot smoking, tree hugging, dirt worshiping master gardener that is an excellent agricultural writer. He can take an extremely complex subject and explain it to gardeners (smart folks but not necessarily professional scientists) in garden speak.


Excellent book. I have started reading Teaming with Fungi.

[Patrick Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the writing and the narrator. Lowenfels writes in a fun and engaging manner. Bacteria is wild.

I don’t remember much from this book. I should reread it because it is important information

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative and easy to read.