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livingontheland - [Livingontheland] BioOrganics Inc., Newsletter - JUne, 2004

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org, gjwalters87829@yahoo.com
  • Cc:
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] BioOrganics Inc., Newsletter - JUne, 2004
  • Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2004 00:03:10 -0600

What Do These Plants Want, Anyhow?
_______________________________________________________

It bears repeating. Providing mycorrhizal fungi spores to plants is NOT
giving them something "extra." It is NOT a miracle-plant-food-sort-of-thingy.
It is NOT some sort of mystical additive.

Simply put, a plant without mycorrhizae on its root system is not equipped to
uptake the necessary nutrients to flourish. You can fiddle with "soil
chemistry" as much as you wish, and you may have some short-term success, but
if the plant has evolved a dependence on soil fungi over millions of years,
that plant will not achieve its full genetic potential without the fungi.

Someday, probably way down the road, it will be widely recognized that
nutrients in the soil are not the only important factor for plant
productivity. It is far more vital to move those nutrients into the roots on
an as-needed basis. And guess what? That is precisely the role that
mycorrhizal fungi have assumed. Most plants do not have roots that can do
this job by themselves.

To a soil biologist, the frustrating thing is knowing that it can be so very
simple to grow food plants that will perform at or near their full genetic
potential. But 99 out of 100 growers just keep pouring NPK fertilizer on
their fields in the belief that high yields come from expensive chemical
methods.

You can plant a beefsteak tomato, drench it with water-soluble plant food
every week, and have a decent harvest. I'll take an identical tomato
transplant, put it in soil with a small handful of fish pellets and a
teaspoon of mycorrhizal inoculant, not add anything else for the entire
growing season, and will end up with at least a 50% greater yield than you -
maybe 150%. And I'll do it year after year - the soil will never be depleted
under a biological orientation.

Higher yields with lower input and long-term sustainability of our valuable
crop soils - that's the promise of using biologically-based methods. Using
beneficial microorganisms instead of petroleum-based fertilizers is a tough
concept to grasp after decades of chemical methods, but the clock is ticking
on chem-ag. If we want to leave our children some decent soil to grow crops,
it's time to stop burning out our farm acreage and gardens with incomplete
"plant foods."

Cheers, and good growing,

Don Chapman
President
BioOrganics, Inc. .
______________________
BioOrganics Inc. News
6/23/04
______________________

Past BioOrganics newsletters are available by clicking on the link
"Newsletters Archive" at:

http://www.bio-organics.com
______________________

Please direct comments or questions to: don@bio-organics.com
Replies to this newsletter go to our listserver and will not be seen.
______________________

BioOrganics, Inc. Endomycorrhizal Inoculant (BEI) is listed by the Organic
Materials Review Institute (OMRI) for use in production of organic food and
fiber.




  • [Livingontheland] BioOrganics Inc., Newsletter - JUne, 2004, Tradingpost, 06/24/2004

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