News

Best wishes for a wonderful 2003 to all of you. Here at BioOrganics, we are looking forward to a very substantial increase in the use of our mycorrhizal inoculants, as we added more dealerships in the U. S. and other countries during 2002. The use of beneficial microbial agents, especially mycorrhizal fungi, as an alternative to NPK fertilizers continues to gain strength, although it will still be some time before most growers switch away from the idea that proper soil chemistry is the only factor that needs to be considered for good plant performance. I think water contamination and soil...

We occasionally receive word from a customer that our inoculant failed to develop any infectivity on plant roots in trials, usually in nursery situations. When dealing with living organisms, it can be difficult to specifically determine why the fungi perform so well in one situation and not in another, but there are some "usual suspects" to consider. Here are are the primary reasons why inoculations fail: Improper potting mixes. Easily the leading reason. The mycorrhizal fungi are adapted to earth-type soils, not to partially-composted wood. Even kitty litter or pure sand would be better for fungi than bark or sawdust-based...

I've just finished reading about inoculating wheat seed in some Nebraska test plots with mycorrhizal spores. A very small amount of inoculant produced good yield increases over comparable control plots during a drought year. The results came as no surprise to me - most areas of the midwest have been so intensely tilled and synthetically fertilized that the once-abundant beneficial bio-life in the soil has been nearly eliminated. Restoring these important biological elements to plant root systems almost has to produce observable benefits. I think it is inevitable that soil scientists will all someday come around to the realization that...

For those of you who have been reading these newsletters for a while, you know that I often use my vegetable garden as an example of biological growing methods. Several years ago, when I first began experimenting with mycorrhizal fungi, I stopped my old ways of rototilling and putting synthetic fertilizer in the soil every spring, with added sidedressings and cultivation during the season. While this routine served me reasonably well for more than 45 years, my research into beneficial microbial organisms indicated that tillage and abnormally high fertility are harmful to mycorrhizal fungi. Having an ultra-productive vegetable garden that...

As a companion piece to my earlier article about mycorrhizal fungi, tomatoes and salty beach sand, an agricultural advisor who lives near Yuma, Arizona, told me an interesting story about creating cropland from desert sand. A farmer in his area set out to create a large field of alfalfa to be watered by circle irrigation - a long motorized pivoting pipe. The area to be converted was basically pure sand with a few widely scattered greasewood bushes. Growing conditions were not the best that first season - there were some water supply problems, the seeding was not done quite early...