As more and more is learned about how plants really work, it is becoming obvious that the conventional emphasis on soil chemistry and NPK fertilizers has problems – most notably in the areas of drinking water contamination, soil degradation, disease-prone plants, and input costs. But after decades of focusing exclusively on chemically-oriented growing practices, soil scientists around the world are now looking to the biological sciences to find better, cleaner, and more sustainable methods of growing both crops and ornamentals. Mycorrhizal fungi inoculants are one of the first results of USDA and university research in this very promising area.

In natural soil situations, plants enjoy mutually-beneficial relationships with many other organisms, many of them microscopic, and all these biological elements – plant roots, fungi, bacteria, earthworms, and other life forms – play some role in the lives of the others. Over millions of years, mycorrhizal fungi and plants have formed a mutual dependence. The fungi are nourished by root exudates and in return bring great amounts of soil nutrients and moisture to their host plants. A mycorrhizal plant can uptake 100 times or more nutrients than one without the beneficial fungi.

For more information, please visit http://www.bio-organics.com