HOW YOUR GARDEN GROWS
All plants rely on relationships with soil microbes that promote healthy growth. These symbiotic plant microbe systems, in which plants leak fifty per cent of the energy they produce through their roots to feed the microbes forming the soil food web, have evolved over millions of years. In return, the microbes provide a better nutrient level in the soil, available at the right time for optimum plant growth, suppress pathogens, aid in the decomposition of toxins, and produce plant growth hormones.
The net result of this is that plants in a healthy food web grow faster, are more healthy and produce better crops with less intervention – a 20-30 per cent increase in yields combined with a reduction in chemical use has been achieved in field trials for some fruits and vegetables.
However, since the 1920s, when inorganic fertilisers first came onto the market, most agriculture and horticulture management has concentrated on soil chemistry and soil physics, at the expense of soil biology. Symbio produce a range of products that innoculate the bacteria, protozoa, fungi and other beneficial life forms found in healthy soil. Different plants have very different soil biology. If you match the correct biology to the plant from the day the seed germinates, exceptional growth can occur. “What we are trying to do is bring the third part of the triangle, the soil biology back into commercial plant growth,” says Martin.
