How to Improve Yields for Crops, Fruit and Nut Trees
Soil microbes and their role in promoting plant and tree growth by improving their uptake of nutrients for crops, fruit and nut trees has become a hot topic among growers in the past few years.
Why pay attention to soil microbes? Because years of adding fertilizers and not reviving the dormant microbe population in the soil may have depleted your soil. According to one journal, “Over just the last several decades, we may have lost about half of the topsoil that natural processes produced over thousands of years in the U.S. corn belt. Topsoil is rich in soil organic matter – dark spongy material formed from decomposed plant and animal tissue. Soil organic matter is critically important: It helps soils hold onto water and nutrients and supports soil microbes that recycle nutrients.” (“To restore our soils, feed the microbes,” The Conversation, Matthew Wallenstein, Colorado State University, July 27, 2017).
The result of these depleted topsoils is frequently poorer crops, increased reliance on fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, and ultimately, reduced profits. It is of upmost importance to build our soils back into a healthy condition where row crops and trees can thrive. But how?
Soil Microbes, Plant Growth, and Humus
One of the keys is humus. Recent research has shown that humus is composed primarily of dead microbes in the soil. The article continues to describe humus and its relationship with soil microbes aiding plant growth: “The vast majority of old soil carbon appears to have undergone microbial decomposition. While plants are the original source of carbon for soils, microbes control its fate by using it as food, thus ensuring that at least some of it will remain in the soil.”
To accelerate the amount of humus—or dead microbes—in the soil, a soil amendment such as MultiFIX by Advanced Biotech, feeds the microbes in the soil can cause an explosion of microbial reproduction. This increase in microbial activity in turn results in the increased uptake of plant nutrients, improved soil quality and better water holding capacity, and above all, increased profits.
