No Snake Oil Here
(THE SEED RESEARCHER - SPRING 1998 )
"There is something to this micro-bial stuff, huh?," a friend said to me the other day. "I put down an organic fertilizer the other day and my greens turn a puke green! Turns out that the soil microbes were so starved that they tied up every spec of nitrogen I put down. A couple days later, the greens were as beautiful and green as you've ever seen." This was his first organic application on new, pure sand greens.
So there really is something living down there.
Russ Ward of ProSeed Turf Supply is fond of saying that when you fertilize you should always think of it as feeding the soil, and not the plants. I always liked that way of thinking.
In recent years the idea of feeding the soil, or more specifically, feeding the soil microbes has received a lot of attention. Superintendents are spraying a wide variety of materials to encourage their microbial populations. Everything from molasses to compost teas (or extracts) to concentrations of soil microbes using injector systems on their irrigation systems have been used. And for all this time, effort and money, it is still hard to qualify, much less quantify the successes brought by these applications by simply looking at the turf stand.
Research by Dr. Vargas at Michigan State University has identified that the bacterium Pseudomonas and Trichoderma are effective in controlling certain turf diseases, noting that these bacterium are actually antagonistic to many turfgrass fungal pathogens (particularly Pythium diseases).
Organica® is a company dedicated to the formulation of a broad range of environmentally compatible agricultural products. Their product line contains a variety of naturally occurring microorganisms and plant extracts that are designed not only to promote plant health, but also provide, fortify and promote plant-beneficial soil microbes.
Organica's Plant Growth Activator (or PGA) is a microbe-based product designed to enhance microbiological activity in the soil.
The Plant Growth Activator is an over-the-top product containing bacteria, complex sugars and B-complex vitamins. The bacteria are prepared in an endospore form, and are activated when mixed into solution and sprayed on turf. The recommendation is for four applications of PGA during the growing season: the initial application, the first follow-up application at two weeks, and all supplemental applications are to be applied at one month intervals.
PGA naturally accelerates seed establishment, cell division, and nutrient uptake and has shown to actually aid in the production of pho-tosynthates.
PGA has over a trillion Bacillus sp. bacteria per pound. A dry, granular formulation is being prepared for future sale.
Another product that will be important to the industry (especially the seed industry) is their Natural Seed Coat™ .
This seed treatment contains a microbial in-oculant derived through a fermentation process. The bacteria produced in this way are then applied to the seed in endospore form, giving the treatment a virtually endless shelf life.
The inoculant provides the seed an initial balance of both essential amino acids for establishment, and beneficial soil microbes in close proximity to the seedling's root system. It is the presence of these antifungal bacteria that help keep the seedling protected from Pythium sp.
Dr. Brilman has produced a preliminary study that suggests that the Natural Seed Coat not only provided a substantial number of antifungal bacteria, but also increased seedling vigor when grown in a sand/peat medium.
Her report concluded that, "For nutrient cycling, active bacterial numbers should be in the 40 to 50 million per gram soil range, which suggests only those samples [in the study] with both organic matter and the antifungal [bacteria] are approaching levels for adequate nutrient cycling."
Her report went on to find that, "Organica's seed treatment increased the active bacteria numbers and biomass in both treatments when it was supplied to the seed." [See Table 1 on the next page.] Seed Research is the only seed company licensed to treat seed with Natural Seed Coat.
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