Translations:Manfred Klett: Von der Agrartechnologie zur Landbaukunst/760/en

Even though precipitation in summer normally reaches an annual maximum on account of the heavy rains of thunderstorms, these evaporate again for the most part just as rapidly — or, depending on soil structure, are lost through surface run-off. The latter is typically the case under maize stands, even on gently sloping ground. If in winter we had water saturation and cold in the soils, then in summer the pores are filled with air and warmth. With the onset of dryness, the breakdown activity of the microbes in the soil diminishes. In its place it is now the soil animal world that commands the scene. If in winter it was the processual predominance of the physical, in spring that of the etheric-living, then in summer it is that of the soul-astral. Through the activity of the soil animals living in air and warmth, processes of inwardisation, of astralization, take place. If in the advancing spring the soil animals had, through their burrowing and digging activity and the legacy of their castings, played an essential part in building up a coarsely porous soil tilth and its system of channels — then from summer to autumn their function shifts by degrees. They now find abundant nourishment in the dying organic matter, above all in the root-permeated topsoil, and ensure that this nutritive humus, in passing through the digestive tract, is converted into enduring humus forms. What in spring was broken down from humus in favour of the vegetative growth of the plants — this is restored through the humus-building activity of the soil animal world, chiefly from high summer onward (Figure 13, p. 222). This process of humus building runs in time polar to that of crystallisation during winter, and takes place in the darkness of the earth. Consequently, all plant residues of the ascending course of the year must be worked into the soil during the descending. This is accomplished through a cultivation pass that incorporates the organic residues lying above the soil — stubble, straw and threshing remains, weeds — into the tilth layer. This mulch cultivation reaches deeper than spring skin tillage, but ideally not deeper than the tilth layer pre-formed since spring extends (approx. 8–10 cm). When this is fully ripened, it leaves behind after working a finely crumbling layer that interrupts capillary water rise, thereby protecting against further evaporation, absorbing heavy rain, and creating a seedbed for shed grain and weed seeds (Figure 13, p. 222).

222