Solving the food crisis

Learn about the Gbiota technology of growing plants without toxic chemicals by creating the right conditions so the beneficial microbes out breed and out compete the harmful microbes – Eco balance.

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Gbiota explained in my latest video

Support our gut health movement

Most people are just looking for some quick fix eg a pill when in reality changing the gut biota is quite a deal.

 

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Solving the food crisis

Learn about the Gbiota technology of growing plants without toxic chemicals by creating the right conditions so the beneficial microbes out breed and out compete the harmful microbes – Eco balance. 

 

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‘Prevention better than cure’ looks at our gut brain.

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‘Health starts in the soil’ looks at the critical issue of soil biology

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‘The worlds best pro-biotics’ looks at the important role the mums play

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Wanted regenerative growers

There are three articles here about regenerative growers – just follow the links at the bottom of each post.

 

 

 

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Colin Austin  © Creative commons this document may be reproduced but the source should be acknowledged. Information may be used for private use but commercial use requires a license.

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Rethinking food and diabetes

Colin Austin © 26 February © 2024 This document is published under the Creative Commons system which means that it can be copied and republished without further permissions but the author Colin Austin @ gbiota.com must be recognised.

Preface

Gbiota.com is a site for concerned thinkers. Concerned about our food system which right now is making us fat and sick and with the combination of climate change and degradation of our soil, threatens the food supply for every person on this earth.

In these modern times most people die from some chronic disease, overweight, diabetes, heart attack, dementia etc.

If you want a sporting chance of living a long and healthy life then you need to understand how the way your food is grown affects your health.

If you think that you can spend thirty seconds looking at some web page then buy some pill and then live a long and healthy life then I suggest you check out those mushrooms you are eating because that is delusional.

You need to spend fifteen minutes reading how the way your food is grown affects you health then change what you eat – not that difficult but certainly not trivial either.

You can read Rethinking food and diabetes here, then either

– sign up as a grower which give you full access to this site, we don’t sell any product – we just show how to grow food

or

– sign up as a consumer and buy from a local Gbiota grower.

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Part 1 Why we need gut-brain food

Grow your own gut-brain food if you want a long and healthy life

We have a gut-brain which regulates our bodies – we need to feed it gut-brain food.

If we don’t feed our gut-brain, which controls our appetite, we do not get the signals saying stop eating, instead we get food cravings.

Then we overeat and get fat and sick. We do not get fat and sick simply because we overeat – we get fat and sick because we are not feeding our gut brain so we get food cravings.

We need to eat plants, grown in living soil, full of beneficial microbes and nutrients – and eat fresh before the microbes die.

That is the way the real world works, no amount of virtual reality, computing power, artificial intelligence or manipulative promotion will change the way the real world works.

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The Gbiota technology

The Gbiota technology creates living soil, with a broad spectrum of beneficial microbes and essential minerals to grow plants that we eat to give us a healthy gut-brain which regulates our bodies so we live a long and healthy life.

This is a major issue for humanity. The population has exploded and we have increased food production dramatically, but with energy food which is lacking gut- brain food and key nutrients. This is the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases.

We need to fix our food system, avoiding deficits and ensuring sustainability.

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Diabetes strikes

My wife, Xiulan is a medical doctor, a surgeon, but she became diabetic, her foot started to turn black and our medical advisers were saying they may need to amputate.

I am an engineer and innovator. I was selected as one of the countries leading innovators by the Australian Institute of Engineers.

I know that the key to being an innovator is to really understand the underlying reasons, keep on asking why, why, why until you get to the underlying reason.

Diabetes is caused by fat in the wrong place, at first in the muscles and then in the pancreas.

But why does our bodies create fat in the wrong place.

The answer is not because we eat too much but our gut-brain decides we need to store more fat.

But why does our gut-brain decide we need to store more fat.

Answer because it detects a deficiency in our diet, either some critical mineral or lack of microbes in our food.

The solution is simply to eat food, grown in living soil, teaming with beneficial microbes and nutrients.

But here comes the big snag. Growing plants in living soil is easy and inexpensive. Why is that a snag.

We live in an age of hype and super sophistication. People just do not believe that a complex disease like Diabetes can be overcome in such a simple and inexpensive way.

This is really sad as every eight seconds some unfortunate person has a limb amputated and that could probably have been avoided.

I would very much like to change that, you can help by first reading my article Health – starts with the soil.

Then actually create soil full of beneficial microbes and minerals, grow plants and eat them while they are really fresh before the microbes die.

You will know if it works and as you will feel satisfied and not craving food.

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Our gut-brain

Our gut-brain decides how much and where we store fat and then regulates our appetite – how much we want to eat.

We cannot be healthy without a working gut-brain.

We need to feed our gut-brain so it works properly.

Gut brain-food starts in the soil with the creatures of the soil, the worms, beetles, insects, larvae fungi and microbes eating organic matter breaking down rock particles to provide bio-available nutrients.

This is a natural process which has been going on for millions of years, until recently, when we adopted toxic chemical which kill of the beneficial soil life so we no longer feed out gut brain.

A poor gut brain is the underlying cause of the epidemic of modern diseases, overweight, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

There are far sighted growers who understand this well and adopt regenerative farming to create a healthy soil so the beneficial microbes enter the plants which we eat.

But that is not enough, the beneficial microbes breed incredibly fast but they also have a short life span. Within three days of harvesting they will be dead.

The Gbiota system solves this by loading the regenerated soil into boxes so instead of buying already harvested plant people can buy boxes (which they swap over) with growing plants which they pick and eat at home while still genuinely fresh.

 

 

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Avoid toxic chemicals

Many people are quite rightly worried about the toxic chemicals in their food.

A far bigger problem is that these toxic chemicals kill of the beneficial microbes in the soil which eventually form our gut brain which regulates our bodies.

A poor gut brain is the underlying cause of the epidemic of modern diseases, obesity, diabetes, heart attacks dementia etc.

The Gbiota system does not use toxic chemicals but creates the conditions where the beneficial microbes out breed and out compete the harmful microbes – Eco balance.

Many people grow plants in Gbiota boxes which is quite practical but some people simply do not have the time so they can buy a Gbiota box with plants already growing and ready to harvest.

This is important as the beneficial microbes have a short life of about three days. You can buy the very best organic produce but if you don’t eat shortly after harvest the benefits will be lost.

With a Gbiota box you have growing plants in your home ready to pick and eat.

We do not sell any food, we just teach people how to grow their own Gbiota food or help commercial growers set up viable businesses selling Gbiota food. 

To access this information you need to register.

Sign up to become a Gbiota member and we can show you how to grow Gbiota food or if you want to become a Gbiota grower we will help you set up a viable local business producing Gbiota boxes.

Either way you will need to sign up with a valid email address, we will not bug you but we do create a new post every week so you need to click on the notify me of new posts at the bottom of every post and sign in as a valid member.

Part 2 Creating a paradigm shift

Two hundred years ago the great Mathematicians like Newton and Leibniz knew how to solve coupled partial differential equations, but they could not do it – there was too much computation.

Fifty years I realised that, even with the primitive computer of that time that I could write software which would solve these equations. No great deal here, any competent mathematician could have done that.

But I realised that I could now calculate out how to direct flow away from easy to fill areas of a mould to the difficult areas to fill.

After a battle for acceptance this totally changed the way the  industry worked and I was recognised as one of the countries leading innovators

Today I realised that our bodies have a highly sophisticated control system but it needs the right species of microbes to work effectively but that the wrong species make us sick or even kill us.

But I saw that I could use the principles of Ecosystems to control the conditions, particularly the moisture levels so the beneficial microbes would simply out breed the harmful ones.

I now believe that if this technology was widely adopted it could go a long way to resolving the epidemic of chronic diseases, particularly diabetes which results in a limb being amputated every eight seconds.

But I need help in getting this message out to the world.

 

He’s a nutter

We have known for at least twenty years that Diabetes gets serious when fat levels in the Pancreas increase preventing the Pancreas from making insulin.

All the experts say the solution is to go on a diet and reduce food input. This is so instinctively obvious, you are fat so eat less, and is the accepted view of the experts in the field so how could it possibly be wrong?

If some guy comes along, who is not a dietitian or even medically qualified and said ‘Look you have been trying that for twenty years, and it has not worked, Diabetes is the fastest growing of all diseases – it is time for a rethink and instead of eating less, eat more, maybe of a different type of food but still more’.

Your immediate reaction would be, quite justifiably, to say this guy is a nutter and move on.

Well, I am that nutter and I have been here before.

Looking at problems a different way

Some fifty years ago, when computers were driven by punched cards, I saw the potential that this would change the way engineers went about their business.

I was an early pioneer of computer- aided engineering.

I wrote up a software simulation of hot plastics flowing into a cold mould, actually quite sophisticated involving solving non-linear simultaneous equations of heat transfer and fluid flow. But no one needed to know anything about that to use my software.

This simulation showed that the way the industry was thinking about designing plastic moulds had serious defects. It was based on the perfectly obvious and common sense thinking that if the mould failed to fill the solution was to make the flow channels bigger – what could possibly be wrong with that?

My simulation enabled me to rethink the whole process and in many cases the solution was to make the flow channels smaller – not bigger.

The rethink was that some areas of the mould were very easy to fill, while other areas were more difficult. What was needed was to restrict the flow into the easy-filling areas so diverting the flow to the more difficult-to-fill areas.

The net result – to fill the mould make some flow channels smaller.

Sounds totally ridiculous.

How crazy is that? The mould wont fill so make the flow channels smaller, time to call the nurse with the straight jacket.

I labelled this flow balancing and my software, which predicted flows and pressure enabled engineers to calculate how to make the required restrictions.

I bought an around-the-world airline ticket on my credit card to run a lecture tour about my thinking.

In the sophisticated cities of the world, I was the butt of many jokes about some wild Australian, where Kangaroos hop along the main street, and was widely regarded as a nutter.

But a few, very few, entrepreneurial far-sighted engineers, the early adopters asked ‘What if he is right?’

And they tried it and it worked. It literally changed the plastics industry and I was recognised by the Institute of Engineers as one of the countries top innovators.

Plastics to Eco-systems

But I was getting a bit concerned about the plastics industry so I sold the company I had formed to exploit the technology I had developed which gave me the money to work in the area I really wanted to work in – how Eco-system actually work.

My wife Xiulan, a medical doctor became diabetic and her foot started to turn black and needed amputation.

I thought I should apply what I had learned about Ecosystems to the human body and the soil in which we grow our food.

That showed me that the conventional way we were thinking about Diabetes was too restricted, the classic Silo effect, and that the solution to Diabetes may be to eat more, not less food.

Not more of the same food but food that had been grown based on Eco-logical principles.

 

Control systems

The thinking was analogous to my thinking fifty years ago. Our bodies have evolved an intelligent control system to regulate our bodies. If you are swinging from branch to branch to avoid being eaten by some ferocious monster below you don’t want to be heavy and fat.

We have evolved over some million years to be naturally lean and healthy.

My first job as an engineer was working for a company that made control system for power stations so I know how control systems work.

If our bodies sense a deficit in our diet it goes into overdrive, sending out hormones to make us feel hungry so we eat more. We have evolved this capacity as part of our survival mechanism.

What we are missing in our modern diet is the beneficial microbes that power our gut-brain.

Kill the germs

But just as it seems obvious, and accepted wisdom, that to make a mould fill we need to make the flow channels bigger it is equally obvious that harmful microbes, the pathogens or germs that can makes us sick or kill us should be avoided at all costs.

We are very good at killing germs.

This thinking is perfectly natural, ever since we invented agriculture and lived in cities we have died from infectious diseases.

The statistics are horrifying, out of five babies born three would die before they reached the age of five, and a further child would die in adolescence, largely from infectious diseases.

Lock up the nutter

Anyone who suggests that we should start breeding microbes to go into our food is clearly a nutter, a pubic danger, and should be confined in an institution.

But what happens if that nutter has also developed the technology where we can breed the beneficial microbes that keep us fit and healthy while avoiding the harmful microbes which make us sick or kill us?

Eco-balance

This is what the Gbiota technology is all about, creating the conditions so the beneficial microbes out-compete and out-breed the harmful microbes.

That would mean completely rethinking our ideas on diet and restricting calories, instead of restricting our food intake, carefully controlling calorie intake it means eating additional food to feed the gut-brain.

In practice, when the gut-brain senses that there are no deficiencies it will stop sending our signals (hormones) saying eat more and will send out different hormones saying you are full and feel satisfied so actually may eat less than before.

This is what I call the deficit theory of nutrition, if the gut-brain senses there is a deficit it will make us eat more to fill that deficit and if it senses no deficit it will say stop eating you are full.

This is in direct contradiction to the current paradigm on how to combat diabetes (and other chronic diseases).

Where are the entrepreneurial thinkers?

To make this change we need entrepreneurial thinkers in the health field to become the early adopters.

Now I don’t have to fly around the world on a lecture tour, I can just write this article here and put it on the internet.

The article is in several parts.

The early parts describe the technology of thinking about the soil and human body as Eco-systems, just another technical presentation.

Do we need adoption?

The later parts are about the much more difficult process of getting widespread adoption. And boy oh boy do we need adoption.

Every eight seconds some unfortunate soul has a limb amputated from Diabetes, not very nice for the person and costs the global health system trillions of dollars, and in most cases this is avoidable.

We live in the information age, which would be good if it were not for the fact that it leads to humans being monitored and controlled and turned into dumb donkeys for the benefit of a few.

But if you have escaped being transformed into a dumb donkey please read on, if you are not convinced of the need for action then I have done a bad job of telling this story.

 

Part 3 – the technology

The population explosion

Advances in medical and hygiene technologies have allowed an incredible increase in the human population from one to eight billion people in two hundred years.

The increase in the need for food has been met by an equally dramatic increase in energy food production, actually faster than the increase in population.

But modern synthetic food lacks microbes and trace minerals to feed our gut-brain. Our gut brain is the intelligent control system that regulates our bodies resulting in a global epidemic of chronic or non-infectious diseases, particularly overweight, diabetes, heart attacks, and dementia.

Restore the gut brain

The Gbiota technology aims to restore the gut-brain that regulates our bodies.

This is a simple and effective technology, which is remarkably inexpensive, that solves the problem – at least technically.

It is here and now – ready to go.

Changing the food system

This does involve making some changes to our food system which is much more challenging.

As is so often the case, adoption is a much bigger challenge than developing the technology in the first place.

It is not just about growing vegetables

Yes, we do grow vegetables. But that is not the point. Let’s face it, if you just want a cabbage, and aren’t bothered about beneficial microbes, you can buy one from the supermarket at an amazingly low price.

It looks perfect, without a blemish, and is certainly attractive to buy – which is exactly what the supermarkets want.

But it is dead, inert lacking essential microbes, and probably low in minerals, particularly the trace minerals that the plants don’t need but we do.

The lack of beneficial microbes and trace minerals does not lead to a long and healthy life.

Soil blood

When we used traditional agriculture the soil was living, teaming with microbes, and generally had a good distribution of minerals.

The water in the soil was not pure but full of microbes and dissolved minerals. We call this soil blood as it fulfils the same function as human blood.

These would enter the plants and then our bodies when we ate the plants. This gave us a healthy gut-brain which regulates our bodies.

But we suffered greatly from infectious diseases.

Then we changed our agricultural system to rely heavily on chemicals which replaced the microbes and many of the trace, but essential nutrients.

We swapped from dying from infectious diseases to dying from non-infectious diseases.

Not an ideal swap!

Aims of the Gbiota technology

The Gbiota technology aim is to create living soil with a broad spectrum of beneficial microbes and minerals, to grow plants that we eat to give us a healthy gut-brain that regulates our bodies so we can expect to live a long and healthy life (that is is the easy bit) but without breeding harmful microbes which will make us sick or kill us (that is the hard bit).

This is a major issue for humanity. The population has exploded and we have increased food production dramatically, but with energy food which is lacking gut-brain food and key nutrients. This is the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases.

We need to fix our food system, avoiding deficits and ensuring sustainability.

Most of the food we eat is simply used for energy, our current food system is supplying energy food in large quantities.

What is lacking is food to feed our gut-brain.

How Eco-system work

The soil and our gut are both complex Ecosystems.

It is tempting to think that we could develop some magical pill that would solve the gut-brain issue – just take a pill and everything works fine.

But Ecosystem depends on conditions.

Let me take a very simple example to illustrate the point. In nature, there are two great recycling species – the ants and the worms.

 

Ants v worms

Ants have evolved to flourish in dry conditions while worms flourish in wetter conditions.

I may decide that I want to use worms to recycle and buy the very best worms available and add them to my soil.

If I fail to keep the soil moist then ants will just appear, as ants do, and the worms will die providing food for the ants.

Change the conditions – change the microbes

That is the way natural Ecosystems work. It is necessary to have the species to start with, but in most cases that species already exists but the conditions are just not right for it to flourish so it remains a fringe species, but change the conditions and they will become the dominant species.

This happens in everyone’s gut. We all have E-coli in our gut but it does us no harm as the conditions favour other species which simply out-breed and out-compete the harmful E-coli.

But change the conditions and we get sick or may even die from E-coli.

This is the fundamental principle underlying the Gbiota technology.

It is not about carefully breeding the required beneficial microbes under laboratory conditions and encapsulating them in a pill, it is about managing the conditions so the beneficial microbes out-breed and out-compete the harmful microbes that inevitably exist.

Dynamic populations

We could have a DNA test to determine the species in our gut. If life just continues as normal with no change we could go back a month later and have a retest and expect to get a similar result.

But they may be the same species but they are different microbes, the great grandchildren of the original microbes.

This is a dynamic population if you went to Guangzhou or Mumbai fifty years ago you would find a predominately Chinese or Indian population and that is still true today, different individuals but similar people.

The conditions have not changed – the population remains stable.

Do the same with say London or Melbourne and the change would be obvious. Different individuals with different characteristics.

This is the underlying thinking behind the Gbiota technology, change the conditions, and everything changes.

Essential for life

All living creatures require three basics – air, water, and nutrition.

But each species requires very different proportions.

Plant Watercress or Mangroves in the desert and they will soon be replaced by Cacti or Spinifex without any human intervention in the same way that Nut grass and dandelions proliferate in my garden with no external help from me.

Simple, effective, and inexpensive

This approach leads to simple, effective, and inexpensive solutions which you may think would make adoption so easy.

But at times humans can only be described as weird, the immediate reaction is how can a solution so simple and inexpensive work?

So the immediate reaction is to reject the idea and look for some complex solution that does not work.

You don’t have to look far into our modern world of computing where the ideas seem to be to make everything so complex that it does not work.

Eco-systems in practice

Sharing Nutrients

We need to feed the beneficial microbes and that is just so easy.

Microbes are just everywhere, on every surface and just floating about in the air and they eat organic waste. This provides them with energy and many of the minerals that microbes need.

But microbes appreciate, (unlike many humans), that they are part of an Eco-system where individual parts of the Eco-system contribute to the system as a whole.

We have fungi, which have extremely fine hyphae that can create intense pressure ,coupled with enzymes which can dissolve rocks and create nutrients that are available to the Eco-system as a whole.

Plants also form part of that Eco system, capturing energy from the sun, which they use to make sugars which they exude from the roots to feed the microbes in the soil, while the microbes and fungi provide nutrients to the plants.

Powered by organic waste

What does it cost us to manage this system? We need to collect organic waste, any organic waste which would otherwise be converted into greenhouse gases in waste tips. We also need minerals, typically in the form of rock dust which is readily available as a waste product from quarries.

Again we do not have to worry about sustainability. There are mountains of rocks and more are created everyday from larvae flow.

If ever there was an example of turning an unwanted waste into something really useful – this is it.

Water and air

I need to talk about these together as they are linked.

Good soil is made up of about half solids – minerals and organic matter. The more organic the better but it is continuously being used as food for the soil creatures (which is good) but is easily oxidised (which is not so good if you care about greenhouse gases).

The remaining space is just that – voids typically with a spread of sizes.

The very fine pores will be filled with water (actually soil blood) which is so firmly attached to the soil particles that neither the plants or the microbes can break it free from its attraction to the soil.

That is why plants die when there is still water in the soil. Growers talk about the wilt point for this lower level.

Then there are the medium-sized pores where the plants, microbes, and fungi can readily extract the moisture from the soil for productive use.

Then there are the large pores where the soil can not hold the water so it readily drains away. Growers talk about field capacity.

Creatures of the soil

In addition to these large pores there are channels made by the creatures of the soil, particularly worms but also rotting root systems which provide channels through the soil.

These are very important for the Gbiota technology and is one of the many reasons we rely on worms to make it work.

These creatures have a gut, just like us, with similar microbes.

 

Good and bad bugs

The Gbiota technology is all about preferentially breeding the good bugs over the bad bugs by managing the conditions.

We know exactly the conditions that will preferentially breed the bad bugs.

In the soil we have soil blood, this magic fluid containing dissolved nutrients and a broad spectrum of microbes.

If we let this become stagnant it makes ideal conditions for breeding the bad bugs. These are the bugs that will make us sick or kill us.

There are also bugs that will make growing plants more difficult – in particular there are the root-eating nematodes. I think with a name like that I do not need to explain the damage they can cause.

Rule 1 – not stagnant

So we know that rule number 1 is that we must never allow this soil blood – full of a broad spectrum of both beneficial and harmful microbes and nutrients to become stagnant for any length of time.

Rule 2 – breathe the soil

But just keeping the soil blood moving is not enough, we also have to ensure it is full of oxygen.

How we do this is the essence of the Gbiota technology.

So let me stop talking theory and get down to the nitty gritty of how it works.

Gbiota beds and boxes

We use the same principles in both Gbiota beds and boxes but we have to apply these principles in different ways.

Beds

Gbiota beds are, as their name suggests are in-ground beds. We have recently suffered major flooding from climate change so I now use raised beds so they are really on-ground beds.

They have several advantages, technically they encourage a wide range of creatures to enter the system.

I talk a lot about microbes, which are incredibly small and have short lives, and fungi, which can be incredibly large (the largest living creature extending over several kilometres) but the mid-sized creatures are also incredibly important to a living Eco-system.

These creatures, the worms, soldier fly larvae, beetles, slaters, saw bugs, spiders, etc all have a gut, just like us, to digest their food. As we are trying to breed microbes for our gut they are an important part of the scene.

These naturally find their way into the Gbiota beds, we don’t have to do anything – they just come naturally.

Boxes

Gbiota boxes are a lot smaller so don’t have the production capabilities of beds but they do have the big advantage that they can be used at home to grow plants.

This is incredibly important. The microbes work on a different time scale to us. I use the ratio that one hour of a microbes life is equivalent to a year of human life.

If you buy a vegetable from the Supermarket it will have been grown in soil with the nutrients provided by chemical fertilisers so there will be minimal microbial life in the soil and hence the plants.

But what there is will have died by the time they end up on the table.

The overriding advantage of the Gbiota boxes is that they allow people, even with no growing skills, to have growing plants at home which they can pick and eat before the microbes die.

This is a crucial part of the Gbiota technology.

Combo

These are not competing systems, my preferred system is to use beds to create the living soil then to use this soil (Wickimix) in Gbiota boxes.

This is the system I use at home, if for no other reason, it is much easier to protect boxes from the invading insects which are an inevitable part of growing without toxic chemicals.

Gbiota boxes

I am going to describe the Gbiota boxes as it is easier to explain how they work. Gbiota beds are based on the same principles but the mechanics are a bit more complex.

There is nothing special about the Gbiota boxes, they are just regular storage boxes that you can buy from any hardware store.

They will be exposed to sunlight so they should be UV resistant. Black plastic boxes are loaded with carbon black which is a dirt cheap way of making them UV resistant.

There are some UV resistant clear boxes but most cheap clear boxes will become brittle within a few weeks in direct sunlight.

Size is important as they need to be transported and carried. A 20 litre box is about the maximum that can be easily handled but I often just partially fill a 30 litre box which I can use as a terrarium with a lid for germination then just drape a fly screen over the top.

I drill a hole in the side as low as I can then use a rubber grommet and connector to make a swivel tube.

I cut a piece of Ag pipe to fit neatly into the base.

I used to just bend the Ag pipe to make a filler, now I either cut the pipe at 45º and similarly with the vertical pipe or just drill a large hole in the base pipe.

Either way, allows me to view the water level in the base of the box which is an important part of managing the system.

I then fill the base of the box to about a third of the height of the box (eg about 100mm) with organic waste. I then add a nutrient mix, containing minerals, manure, and trace minerals, (typically available in blood and bone) on top with of course the worms to process the organic waste.

In the ideal situation, I will then fill the box with soil created in a Gbiota bed (Wickimix) but if not available any good soil.

I wet out from above then seed as normal.

Nothing much new here, it is the operation that is important.

 

Operation

I have to wait until the seeds have germinated and put down a reasonable root system before I can start operating the box according to the Gbiota principles.

I set the swivel tube to the vertical position and fill the box to the top of the swivel tube through the filler pipe.

This has to fit around normal living so I typically do this over the week-end.

After the seeds have germinated and put down roots I water from underneath.

I leave the swivel tube in the up position and allow the water (soil blood) to wick up to the roots of the growing plants. I do not top water but if the boxes are outside and it rains the surface is wetted.

At mid-week, which is the maximum length of time I want the soil blood to be stagnant I twist the swivel tube down and catch the soil blood in a suitable container (eg milk bottle – I am into recycling) for reuse on the next cycle.

Most of the soil blood will drain out but there will still be some soil blood left in the base so I wait until that has all been used up. This is why I like to be able to view the water level through the filler pipe.

Flood, drain, and circulation

Just think what is happening here. When I flood the base of the bed I am expelling the stale air that always accumulates in the soil from the biological action. Rotting organic waste can make growth inhibitors – who wants that?

When I drain the bed I am sucking fresh air back into the soil in the box. I am breathing the soil.

The soil blood is also being aerated every time I cycle creating the conditions which preference the beneficial microbes.

Reloading

When the crop has finished I refill the box by putting the lid back on, turning the box upside down, lifting the box off and reloading with fresh organic waste then flipping the old soil back into the box so the structure of the soil is not disturbed.

Gbiota beds

Gbiota bed work on the same principles as boxes, partial flood and drain and recirculate. But the mechanics are a bit different.

Now my strategy is to level the ground, hopefully, this give me a bit of top-soil I can use later.

Then a lay out lengths of Ag pipes in rows. At the filler end, I pack some soil so the pipe will be above the height of the raised bed when complete.

At the other end, I make a leaky dam, just a bit higher than the pipe thickness, sufficiently dense so that it takes some time (hours) for the water to drain out when it goes back to a sump below the bed level.

A sump pump in the sump has a float valve so when the sump is nearly full the pump automatically switches on and feeds the ag pipe from a manifold.

This will flood the area around the pipe and when the pump switches off water will wick to the rest of the bed and drain back to the sump through the leaky dam.

Operation is like the boxes, wet the soil and seed as normal then surface water, if needed, until the plants have put down roots.

Then irrigate from underneath using the subsurface pipes.

All pretty straightforward.

Part 4 Adoption

As is common in the world of technology and innovation developing the technology is the easy bit, getting widespread acceptance and adoption is the difficult bit.

It means discarding paradigms that appeared to have worked well for many years (even if they have been total failures as with diabetes which is the fastest- growing of all diseases) and changing the way we go about our lives.

Abort the calorie theory

The calorie theory of diet has dominated professional thinking for many decades. This says that it is possible to calculate (or look up in a chart) how many calories a particular individual needs.

Even superficially it does not sound that convincing, people are very different and engage in very different levels of physical activity, and even an individual will use vastly different amounts of energy from day to day.

But the real weakness of this approach is that it is in direct conflict with our intelligent control system which regulates our bodies.

If this control system decides, for whatever reason, that there is a shortage of food it will shut down activity in the body to conserve energy.

If we deprive the body of food we are training our intelligent control system to store more fat when food becomes available. Not what we want!

If there is a surplus of food our control system will direct us to burn up more energy.

Calorie restriction v intelligence control system

The calorie theory is in direct conflict with our control system which is continuously monitoring, in real-time by a sophisticated sensor system, how much energy we have available and how much we are using.

A healthy gut-brain system will outperform a set of pre-calculated tables every time, we just have to feed the gut-brain.

But the calorie theory is a paradigm that lingers on.

The food system

The food system underlies re-solving Diabetes. I was a kid in the war, everyone ripped up their lawns and grew vegetables fertilised with organic waste, and if you were lucky enough to be able to access it, that valuable resource – manure.

40% of the fruit and vegetables were grown in home (or Victory) gardens and diabetes was so rare as to be unknown. (But infectious diseases were a major issue).

Much food came from local farms.

Since that time there has been a continuous trend to smaller blocks, bigger houses and people living in cities so we have been forced to buy food through the supermarket system.

Despite what the adverts say this food is not fresh, it started off low in microbes, and by the time it is eaten any microbes that happened to exist have long since died.

Consequently, we are not feeding our gut brain and now Diabetes and other non-infectious diseases are at epidemic levels.

It is just plain naive to think we can solve this with some magic pills without resolving the food system.

In developing the Gbiota technology I was very aware of the need to change our food system.

At this moment there is abundant energy food readily available so changing energy food is not a priority. This may change with the twin evils of climate change and the degradation of our soils.

Grow gut-brain food

The immediate issue is to ensure that gut-brain food is readily available at an affordable price.

It is perfectly practical to use Gbiota boxes to grow gut-brain food although this does mean the consumer must be willing to recycle organic waste at home and to have enough boxes to provide all the gut-brain food needed with a full growing cycle at home.

But if gut-brain food is to become universally available (eg feeding 8 billion people) we need a system of local growers who recycle organic waste to produce Wickimix which is loaded into Gbiota boxes, plants grown to the start of harvest stage and then delivered to the home grower who only has to water, pick and eat then swap the boxes over for fresh ones.

 

Regenerative growers are out there

In my understanding there are plenty of regenerative growers who are well capable of providing this service but are reluctant to set up businesses because there is no immediate demand for gut-brain food from their local community food.

This is hampered by the widespread promotion of magic pills which is promoted by very skilful manipulative advertising by the manufacturers and passive endorsement by health professionals.

Community awareness

This will only change when there is wide-spread awareness in the community that we need to be eating real gut-brain food grown in soil containing both beneficial microbes and critical minerals.

This will not happen overnight (or even in my life time as I am 84).

It may seem that in the internet age this would readily happen but the wonderful world of virtual reality is not a help.

An ocean of fake products

There is so much manipulative promotion of clearly fake products that the public confidence in the internet as a source of reliable information has declined.

The controllers of the virtual reality world have been very successful in making people believe that all they need do is follow the lead of some cute-catch phrase.

I have spent money on advertising on the Internet, the response has been dramatic with thousands of people visiting my web each day, but they don’t invest the time to understand the complexity of the human body as an Ecosystem which is the core of the Gbiota technology.

Learning from a previous paradigm shift

For that, we can learn from the adoption of the flow balancing technology all those years ago which came about because a few entrepreneurial (actually intrapreneurial) engineers, working for large and influential companies, seeing the benefits and showing that this works.

What we need right now are entrepreneurial people, preferably in the health area, to lead their communities to this new way of thinking.

It is the age old formulae of show and tell. Start eating fresh plants grown in living soil full of beneficial microbes and nutrients, see for yourself how this reduces food cravings, then just tell your friends and contacts.

This is the way we will get this technology accepted, it could save an awful lots of limbs being amputated which is my measure of success.

That is why I wrote this rather long document if you have read this far and the shoe fits then please email me at colin@gbiota.com.

 

Support our gut health movement

Most people are just looking for some quick fix eg a pill when in reality changing the gut biota is quite a deal.

Faecal transplants

The only sure way of changing your gut biota is by the delightful process of a faecel transplant – having someones else’s pooh poked up your bum.

That won’t catch on.

Magic pills

Just buying food or supplement is not viable, the beneficial microbes die quickly and if any are still alive they will be  killed by the acid in the stomach.

Eating plants that have been grown in biologically active soil works pretty good as the vegetables protect the microbes while passing through the gut which has evolved to be highly acidic and kill of pretty much everything.

Real food

Eating fresh plants is by far the most effective and economic way of changing the gut biota.

You can learn how to grow plants as gut-brain food using the Gbiota technology, that is what people are currently doing but it does requires dedication.

Much easier is just to buy from a local Gbiota grower and have a Gbiota box with plants already growing delivered to your door.  But to set up a network of Gbiota groweres means you have to register your interest.

Growers need confirmation

It is just a fact the growers are not going to invest their time in setting up the needed growing facilities to produce real gut brain food unless there are people out there willing to buy who have not been duped in thinking that they can buy some magic pill made from some mythical plant in the Amazon jungle or Himalayan mountains.

Social movement (driven by the people)

This is a social movement to enhance community health by setting up a network of local growers who are applying the Gbiota technology.

Our aim is to set up this network of independent local growers who can breed beneficial microbes in the soil to create Wickimix – a soil loaded with beneficial microbes and nutrients.

This is loaded into Gbiota boxes based on Wickingbed principles so people can enhance their gut biota by having vegetables growing at home, which they can pick and eat while still fresh before the beneficial microbes die.

This enhances their gut biota which regulates their bodies, particularly how much and where we store fat which is the under lying cause of the modern health epidemic.

This is described in our strategy document.

Please read and if you support our aims then please register your support here.

Showing your support encourages growers to invest their time and money in setting up Gbiota beds.

 

Diabetes – start with the soil

The wonders of the modern age

People, across the globe, are getting fat and sick – why?

Chronic, non infectious diseases like diabetes, heart attacks and dementia used to be uncommon – certainly not at the modern epidemic levels.

Now some 80% of people die from chronic or non infectious diseases.

The biggest change has been in the food we eat.

We used to grow our food in natural living soil full of microbes and nutrients and eaten fresh.

In the past people died from predominantly from infectious diseases, despite recent hiccups modern medical science and hygiene systems like clean water and sewage we have dramatically reduced deaths and sickness from infectious diseases.

We now get sick or die from predominantly noninfectious chronic diseases.

Soil mircobes

In the traditional food system microbes in the soil break down the rock particles so they are transformed into soluble chemicals which are bio-available.

These microbes in the soil does more than turn rock particles into bio-available nutrients, they forme part of the soil blood, (the solution in the soil containing nutrients and microbes) which enters the plants which we eat and forms our gut biota.

Modern food is grown in soil where the nutrients are supplied by chemicals so there are very few living microbes in our food.

Look at the Blue Zones where people are fit and healthy to a ripe old age, each blue zone eats very different types of foods but they are all grown in natural living soil.

We have cases of people suffering the effects of Diabetes, needing to have a limb chopped off, but avoiding that unpleasant experience simply by eating food grown in soil full of living microbes.

 

Diabetes – the trial blazer for understanding

There has been lot of real research on Diabetes so we have a good understanding of how it works and we can easily see the effect of any changes by monitoring blood sugar levels.

The underlying cause of Diabetes, together with most of the chronic diseases like heart attacks, dementia, or just plain overweight, is the wrong fat in the wrong places.

We know that Diabetes starts in a gentle way with excess fat in the muscles blocking sugar from entering the muscles to provide energy.

Insulin, the hormone that should control sugars entering the muscles, is no longer as effective as is should be.

Make more insulin

The body has an intelligent control system which knows that the body needs more insulin and sends out signals so the pancreas makes more insulin.

This intelligent control system regulates our entire body, our temperature breathing and heart rate, our immune system and particularly when we need food, it makes us hungry, and when full feel satisfied.

It can detect if we are short of particular types of food, if we work in the garden on a hot day so we sweat, it knows we are short of salts and makes us crave salty food.

This intelligent control system is one of the most amazing and critical function in our bodies.

Fat in the pancreas

When fat starts to build up in the pancreas it blocks the production of insulin.

Without enough insulin the blood sugar increases, the blood becomes thick and can’t flow into the tiny capillary blood vessels so the extremities of the body, like feet don’t get enough blood and start turning black.

To save the entire body there is no alternative but to amputate the limb to save the life. Every eight seconds someone has a limb amputated – this is a serious issue and we need a serious solution.

The hype machine

We live in the age of the virtual world of the internet where we are led to believe that there is some simple solution to complex problems.

Just search the Internet thinkers and you will find a total abundance of magic pills, possibly based on exotic plants from the Amazon Jungle or Himalayan mountain, which will solve all these problems – just take these pills, you will become slim and young, avoid getting old and live a wonderful life.

This is a fake world motivated by profit, we need real solutions.

 

Learning about our intelligent control system

Our intelligent control system receives information from throughout the body, process this information in a combination of our gut and head brains, then send out signals, either electric through the nervous system, or chemical through hormones in the blood, to regulate our bodies.

We have a good understanding of the input and output systems but we really have no idea of how the code in this processing system works.

We can get some feel of how it works from our own self learning or artificial intelligence codes, but we really have not idea how it works at the code level.

But we can experiment and observe to get some feeling of how it works.

The Pooh eaters

One of the experiments is to feed the pooh of fat rats to skinny rats and vice versa. We can change fat rats to skinny rats and skinny rats to fat rats.

Why is it that there are many animals, from tiny mice to huge elephants where eating each others pooh seems ingrained in their nature, why do they do that?

To create their gut biota.

Rats are not people and we don’t eat each others pooh so what do we do instead?

We eat food grown in living soil full of beneficial microbes.

In this modern day of sophisticated DNA testing we can see that there is a correlation between the species of microbes in our gut and whether we are fat or skinny.

This proves beyond doubt that our guts play an important role in where and how much fat we store.

Beware the correlation trap

We don’t get fat simply because we eat too much food. Our gut-brain sense a deficiency and send out signal for us to eat more.

We can’t solve that by simply eating less, we solve it by fixing the deficiencies and feeding our gut brain the right food so it sends out signals saying we are satisfied.

The fat trainers

We can do experiments, sometimes not so voluntarily, on people and notice the what happens.

One experiment (which happens in war time) is to deprive people of food. As expected they loose weight. But after the conflict, when food becomes available, they put on a lot of extra weight.

We can conclude that our gut-brain has learned about food shortages and remembers over a long period of time.

We can see similar affects in areas where the soil is lacking key nutrients and people put on weight.

Perhaps most disappointing for many wishing to loose weight is that they go on some extreme diet, find they loose a lot of weight, but later end up even fatter.

The mechanism, our gut-brain, that control how much fat we store is a pretty sophisticated system which has real intelligence and can learn and remember over significant lengths so time.

 

A microbes life

Microbes have a very rapid life cycle, they start breeding after twenty minutes but die after about seventy hours. But there are thousands of species of microbes in both the soil and our gut.

If the conditions suit some species they will out breed and out compete the other species to become the dominant species.

We may take some magic pill, a pro-biotic, thinking this could change our gut species but if the conditions do not favour those species they will not flourish and will be out bred and out competed by species that are better suited to those conditions.

Breed the beneficial not the harmful

It means we should forget all that hype about magic pills from the Amazon jungle or Himalayan mountains, and even professionally produced pro-biotics and focus on the food that we eat everyday.

We should focus on feeding our gut-brain so we feel satisfied.

We know that people in the blue zones and hunter gather tribes do not take pills they just eat food that has been grown in soil full of beneficial microbes and they have the healthiest gut biota known to science.

It is easy to create soil full of microbes they just love to breed like crazy. But we need to breed the beneficial microbes without breeding the harmful ones that make us sick or kill us.

While we have the technology of breeding specific breeds of microbes under laboratory conditions, but that is not a practical solution.

The practical solution is to create the conditions in the soil, where our gut microbes originate, so the beneficial microbes out compete and out breed the harmful microbes.

This is a practical method of food production which can be undertaken by home both home growers on a small scale and commercial growers on a larger scale.

This is why I developed the Gbiota technology.

You can learn out how you use the Gbiota technology by registering here.

 

The Gbiota project

Colin Austin© 14th February 2024

Collaborating partners

I am writing this to recruit collaborating partners, who share similar views, to join the Gbiota project.

What is the Gbiota project?

With all the developments in medical science, hygiene, automation and, production (including food) we should all be enjoying the golden years of humanity living long, healthy, and affluent lives.

But we are not, and if you don’t see that then my question is ‘What the heck are you smoking?’

In the last fifty years, we have seen dramatic changes to the global health scene with an epidemic of chronic, non-infectious diseases particularly overweight, diabetes, heart attacks, and dementia.

The personal cost to the community is massive with reduced health spans and diabetic complications particularly amputations which occur every eight seconds globally.

The financial cost to the health systems is equally massive, measured in trillions of dollars globally.

This is man-made, we need to understand what causes it and fix it. The Gbiota project is to gather like-minded spirits together and do just that – fix it.

What are the underlying causes?

First, we need to understand the underlying causes, you don’t fix a flat tire by charging the battery.

The underlying cause is our modern diet, which is not feeding our gut-brain, which is the control system for our bodies.

We can eat all the energy food we like, and do massive amounts of exercise but that is all a waste if we don’t fix the control system which regulates our bodies.

We may call it homeostasis but it is the driver of our bodies that controls and regulates everything.

We don’t have to pussy around with words, if we want to enjoy a long life, fit and healthy we have to fix our control system – our gut-brain.

 

Background viewing

These videos explain this in more detail

https://youtu.be/1zyOvbqSS0I

https://youtu.be/NeW2SgTkM6o

https://youtu.be/XhMhZducmk0

https://youtu.be/OS8SbXxJDw4

Further information is available on my web www.gbiota.com. This is a subscription site but you can access using the name guest@gbiota.com and password Goodbugs10!

The basic

for some million years humanoid-type creatures have had a healthy gut-brain by eating plants grown in living soil full of beneficial microbes and nutrients.

They certainly had a healthy gut-brain so diabetes was not an issue but they had no idea about all the harmful microbes so life was not all that great dying young from some infectious disease.

The basics are simple create healthy soil by breeding beneficial microbes in soil full of organic matter and minerals, grow plants in this, soil and eat them while fresh before the beneficial microbes die – easy they have been doing that for some million years, but here comes the catch, do that without also breeding harmful microbes which will make us sick or kill us.

Wait – one more thing – we have to do that in a way that is cheap and easy enough for everyone to benefit.

Core technology

There is no problems with the technology. We know how to do it, we have been doing it for years – it is a mature technology.

The core of the technology is simple – to breed beneficial microbes in a mix of soil, organic waste, minerals, and inoculants. Then load this soil into Gbiota boxes which are used to grow plants that can be harvested while fresh.

This is a simple and inexpensive process. The critical issue is that the conditions must be carefully controlled so the beneficial microbes out-breed and out-compete the harmful microbes, what we call Eco-balance.

This is based on the Wicking bed system I pioneered some twenty-five years ago but using pulsed circulation of what is commonly called soil solution but we refer to as soil blood as it is fulfilling the same function as blood in the human body eg transferring a mix of nutrients, air, and living organisms around the body.

 

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Adoption- the good news

The problem, as in most innovative technologies, is not the technology but the adoption phase.

We have two things going for us and two obstacles we have to overcome.

In our favour is that this is a simple technology and inexpensive – actually it is cheaper than buying fruit and veg from the supermarket.

Further, the results are obvious, there is no need for great long scientific debates interpreting complex statistical analysis. If someone incorporates Gbiota gut-brain food into their diet within a month their gut biota will have changed and they just feel better.

If they are diabetic and want more scientific evidence they can monitor their blood sugar levels.

But the first obstacle is simply to get people to try it then they can make up their mind. If they already have a super effective gut-brain or there is something in their DNA so their gut-brain will never work properly there may be no change.

But the aim is just to get people to try eating gut-brain food for a month.

There are a few people, who are convinced of the potential benefits, and will go to the trouble of setting up their own Gbiota beds but that does require a bit of dedication. They exist but they are rare.

Adoption – the hurdles- expression of interest

For people to try it there needs to be growers who can supply Gbiota boxes.

We need to establish a grower network. But it takes time and money to set up the Gbiota beds so growers, quite reasonably want to know there is a market for their boxes.

To convince the growers we have to set up a system where we identify potential consumers and ask them to create an ‘expression of interest’ basically saying you create the boxes and I intent to buy.

Simultaneously we have to create a potential grower base who again has an intent to set up a gbiota box production system.

The mechanics of this are already set up, we just need to promote this expression of interest system.

 

The growers

The basic aim is to set up a global network of local growers, probably existing growers in the organic, permaculture, and hobby farm areas who already have good skills and understanding of regenerative soil management.

These would create the growing mix which we call Wickimix which they would place into Gbiota boxes, which are essentially refined Wicking boxes, seeded and plant grown to when they are ready for harvesting.

Consumers would harvest and eat the plants while fresh, before there is significant degradation of the beneficial microbes, so enhancing their gut biota which forms part of the intelligent control system.

This regulates our bodies, particularly where and how much fat is stored, which is the underlying cause of the modern chronic disease epidemic.

When the plants have been eaten the boxes are swapped for fresh boxes.

This enables the growers to run viable and profitable businesses offering living plants, full of beneficial microbes and trace minerals which the conventional food system cannot deliver.

For the consumer, there is the expectation of a longer health span free of the current hardship of chronic diseases.

Adoption – the hurdles – hyper marketing

The food, pharmaceutical, and supplement industry is huge and largely unregulated.

They spend billions of dollars on very skilfully produced manipulative marketing with an emphasis on the technical sophistication of their products.

By contrast, we have what looks like a very simple technology breeding bugs in organic waste, (actually making sure you breed the beneficial microbes without breeding the harmful ones is equally smart but not impressive) but is still inexpensive.

It is based on the system that has evolved over millions of years and we know is effective, it is only recently since we adopted synthetic approaches, that it has stopped working.

So we are promoting a technology that is inexpensive and effective, which may sound like a marketer’s dream but is actually a problem. People naturally ask the problem ‘How can something so cheap work?’

 

Organisational structure

This could end up as a massive global operation with significant changes to our food system. This would be too large to be handled by any one organisation.

Even if that were possible it would not be desirable, we are all aware of the defects in economic structure which arise from Neo-monopolistic structures.

The aim is that the production capabilities would be managed by local independent organisations – the classic local farmer.

However, there is a need for community education and promotion.

Currently, this is dominated by mega companies in the food, pharmaceutical, and supplement industries.

This is subject to varying levels of Government control but there is little doubt that there is significant manipulative advertising or dubious products.

The thinking is that there should be coordinated umbrella marketing on behalf of local growers.

This can readily be financed by a royalty on the existing multi-vendor web site www.pickandeat.shop which is run by Gbiota but is currently functional but dormant.

Similarly there would be a pooling of technology among the growers which is already highly active in with the gbiota.com web site.

A further web site gbiota.club offers social media and geolocation with privacy protection for gbiota members.

It is very much hoped that consumer education would aided by collaboration from the Universities, research institution and Government agencies.

Action plan

However laudable the aims we must recognise that the starting position is that the majority of people are eating a diet that leads to the current chronic disease epidemic and is powerfully propelled by a highly effective advertising campaign from companies wanting to sell their products.

However, Gbiota has been running a promotional campaign focused on those interested in gut health.

The overwhelming response clearly shows the widespread awareness of the importance of the gut biota.

However in terms of numbers, which run into thousands per day, this may be successful this is not resulting in concrete results.

Interest and awareness may be high but people are not improving their gut health which is what this project is all about.

For that, we need to have growers who can deliver physical products eg Gbiota boxes with plants growing in Wickimix.

 

 

 

 

Growers and the gut biota

Microbes breed in the soil, enter plants which act as natural pre and pro biotics which we eat to form our gut biota.

This process is the result of millions of years of evolution so we know it works but there are also harmful microbes, pathogens which lead to infectious diseases and can make us sick or kill us.

Beneficial microbes form our gut brain which regulates our bodies, specifically ensuring we store the right amount of fat in the right places leading to a long and healthy life span.

Unfortunately modern food does not feed our gut brain which is the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of diabetes, heart disease and dementia.

In the Gbiota system we careful regulate the conditions so the beneficial microbes out compete and out breed the harmful microbes.

The beneficial microbes need a combination of nutrients, water and air.

We breed the beneficial microbes in raised beds with a subsurface ag pipe.

Soil blood, a combination of water, nutrients and microbes is stored in a sump.

We pump the soil blood into the ag pipe at relatively high flow rates so it creates a pressure which saturate the surrounding soil before if has time to drain away.

The end of the pipe rises over a leaky dam which allows the soil blood to build up pressure then allows excess soil blood to return to the sump.

The area just above the ag pipe is loaded with organic waste which feeds the microbes.

It is then covered with soil, minerals and inoculants then seeded with either food or green manure crops. These plants exude nutrients which attract the beneficial microbes.

After a period, typically a few months the organic waste will have decomposed to creating a living, highly nutritious soil.

Soil blood is pumped into the bed expelling any stales air.

Excess soil blood drains back into the sump

Soil blood then leaks back through the leaky dam back into the sump sucking fresh air back into the soil.

The soil is breathing and the soil blood never become stagnant.

With the right conditions the beneficial microbes out breed the harmful ones.

Eco balance is the basic principle behind the Gbiota technology.

 

This soil is placed into Gbiota boxes and seeded to grow food plants which will act as natural pre and pro biotics.

Growers sell these boxes to their customers so they have living plants growing at their home.

This is important as microbes have a short life so the plants must be eaten shortly after harvesting before the microbes die. Harvested plants will take some time before they go rotten but the beneficial microbes will have died well before the plants go rotten.

When the customer has finished eating their plants they will swap their empty box for a fresh box.

Customers and growers develop a long term relationship, the customers have healthy plants growing at home so can look forward to a long and healthy life while the growers have a viable business knowing they are providing a valuable service to their local community.