Soil Probiotics Vs. Fertilisers
To truly understand the difference between the two, you need to understand them in terms of sustainable plant systems.
Fertilisers are man made chemicals that are used by plants as food for their growth and development. For example, urea, ammonium phosphate, ammonium sulphate, potassium nitrate, etc. as well as micro-nutrients such as iron, zinc, and boron that are needed for plant growth.
Just like a healthy human needs fresh air to breathe, a healthy plant needs healthy soil that is organically rich and teeming with a wide variety of naturally occurring beneficial microbes. It is no wonder that the healthiest and most productive soils in the world are found in natural forests where chemicals have never been applied.
So where do the trees in forests find their food?
All the food in forests are produced naturally via biological processes where organic matter with the help of microbes and their catalytic enzymes is biodegraded into minerals (nutrients) as a food source for plants. So it appears that the organically rich soil along with their naturally occurring biota is the key to plant growth and development.
Most plants at best have the capacity to uptake 20-30% of nutrients. Farmers supply fertiliser chemicals in the amount of 300 -500 times that capacity to satisfy the plant’s needs.
So where do all the excessive chemicals go? Some join the water table, some are dispersed into lakes, streams, and rivers and eventually end up in the ocean. Others are highly volatile, evaporating into the atmosphere while most stay tightly bound to soil particles and become unavailable to plants. This causes soil to become hard and contributes to its salinity, which negatively impacts the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of soils, undermining the flow of water and nutrients through the soil.
Decades of excessive use of fertiliser chemicals along with pesticides and herbicides have severely impacted both the quality and quantities of beneficial soil microorganisms that are the heart and soul of any productive soil. Consequently, this situation has also resulted in many new and more devastating emerging plant diseases. This is where microbial products come into play. We are replenishing those lost microbes and revitalizing our soils once again to become organically rich with thriving beneficial microbes.
More information on BioIQ bacteria
Here is what microbes can do that chemical fertiliser won’t:
· Microbes in soil are naturally occurring and degrade organic matter into nutrients.
· Microbes can collect nutrients from the soil and deliver them to plant roots for uptake.
· Microbes protect roots from harmful and disease-carrying insects.
· Microbes fix atmospheric nitrogen into the soil for plants.
· Microbes create and maintain an ecologically balanced and sustainable soil environment for plants to support their growth and development.
10 Reasons Why Microbes Matter
· Beneficial soil microbes (or Soil Probiotics) presents a natural, organic, effective, eco-friendly and sustainable approach to agriculture for a wide variety of reasons provided below.
1.) Microbes help plants fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. Nitrogen is a vital nutrient required for plant growth and development and is usually supplied in the form of synthetic chemicals such as urea and/or ammonium compounds in large quantities. These chemical compounds are highly volatile.
2.) Microbes help convert unavailable forms of many vital nutrients and enzymatic-ally transform them into readily available and usable forms. For example, enzymatic breakdown of the rock phosphate to free phosphate for plant uptake.
3.) Microbes help release or extract many nutrients that are present in the soil but are tenaciously bound to soil particles. Many nutrients in chemical forms are supplied to plants in quantities that excessive and are above and beyond the plant's capacity for uptake. A huge amount of such chemicals makes ionic and coordinated bonds with soil particles which renders them unavailable to plants. This also makes soil calcareous and saline.
4.) Microbes help create the acidic environment around the root zone critical to healthy root development and functionality. Microbes do that by synthesizing and secreting acidic compounds such as acetic acid, etc. for maintaining the rhizosphere under optimal conditions.
5.) Microbes produce many plants growth-promoting (PGPR) compounds to help plants with their growth and development.
6.) Microbes protect plant roots from many harmful and invasive insects that are the disease carriers. Microbes synthesize organic compounds that deter such insets andprotect roots from infections.
7.) Microbes help plants form the extended root extensions to excess nutrients from the soil that are out of their root zone. Some endophytic microbes are even able to transport nutrients directly into the roots.
8.) Microbes breakdown the complexes or bonds between soil particles and excessive nutrient chemicals which leads to improvement in soil cation exchange capacity (CEC)allowing the free flow of nutrients through the soil.
9.) Presence of beneficial microbes in the soil leads to a healthy and fertile soil as well as vibrant rhizosphere which create ideal or optimal conditions for plant growth and development providing plant the ability to tolerate stresses such as wind, drought, heat, etc.
10.) Microbes help build soil organic matter which leads to higher soil fertility. Microbes do that by enzymatically breaking down the complex organic matter in the soil into simple molecular forms and eventually into plant nutrients.
BioIQ was born out of an ambition to reduce the use of synthetic chemical fertilisers and improve soil health, migrating farmers and agribusinesses to programs more sustainable and safer to use.
Robert Rushford and Mike Tyrrell offer a new plant nutrition solution that provides regenerative and all natural solutions for farmers, land managers [and homeowners] to improve the health of the planet through scientific innovation.
BioIQ is made for Farmers and Land Managers … A leader in fertiliser and soil conditioner technology.
BioIQ
Robert Rushford CEO BioIQ 1300 090 261
