Soil Enhancement & Restoration

A Rutgers-led team has discovered how plants harness microbes in soil to get nutrients, a process that could be exploited to boost crop growth, fight weeds and slash the use of polluting fertilizers and herbicides.

"People have speculated that plants can get nutrients from microbes, but mechanisms for transfer of nutrients from microbes to plants have been elusive -- until now," he said. "Understanding how this process works may allow us to grow plants without fertilizers or with minimal fertilizers and without herbicides. We can manipulate the system to increase the growth of desirable plants and decrease the growth of undesirable plants, potentially using the same microbes."

Farming & Gardening

The use of microbes on any scale, starting with a single tomato plant in a sunroom, up to 1000+ acre farms, can be beneficial. Microbes can be very cost effective in the sense that less fertilizer will be needed in fields, as well as less time plowing, which will allow the microbes to grow and flourish without being disturbed. This will save farmers time and money, which essentially will allow them to get more done in less time.
The use of microbes in farming is not to replace or to be the sole management practice in how we farm. Microbes are to be used side-by-side with other management practices, such as crop rotation, conservation tillage, crop residue recycling, and other organic farming methods. 

What We Know

Only a fraction of what microbes and enzymes accomplish to aid plant growth is known. Here is some of what we do know about the benefits of introducing microbes and enzymes into your soils. Microbes and enzymes play a crucial role in helping plants to thrive amid saline soils, extreme temperature fluctuations, and other environmental challenges. Increasing their presence in our soils is a decisive step to the eventual elimination of pesticide and herbicide. In addition, there is growing evidence that microbes are a key contributor to heightening flavors of top-quality produce.

Soil Enhancement 

Many farmers over the years have been led to believe that microbes are microscopic pests that invade their fields and have destructive outcomes on their crops or livestock. In truth, there are both “good” and “bad” bacteria found in soil already. The “good” bacteria that are used as soil enhancers help cultivate the ground by decomposing organic matter, aerating the soil, maintaining the nutrients reservoirs, and naturally regulating pest species. Farmers are encouraged to add more of the good microbes to their land, due to the overuse of pesticides over the years destroying and breaking down the helpful microbes already in the soil.

Once the microbes are put into the soil and are being utilized by the plants, cattle are then able to eat the plants that are rich with nutrients and break them down in their rumen, which is already full of microbes. As the plant material is being broken down and going through all the digestive stages of the cow, it is turned into manure, which is an all-natural fertilizer. When the cow expels the manure, it adds more nutrients and microbes into the ground, which then “fertilizes” the plant, starting the cycle all over again.
OS SOIL PRODUCT
Elderberry cuttings planted first of March 2018. Picture - April 2018
April 2019
July 2019