Soil Probiotic Vs. Fertilizers
To truly understand the difference between the two, one has to look in the context of sustainability. Fertilizers are manmade chemicals that are used by plants as food for their growth and development. For example, urea, ammonium phosphate, ammonium sulfate, potassium nitrate, etc. as well as micro-nutrients such as iron, zinc, and boron that are needed for plant growth. Just like a healthy human being needs fresh air to breathe, a healthy plant needs healthy soil that is organically rich and teeming with a wide variety of naturally occurring beneficial microbes. It is no wonder that the healthiest and most productive soils in the world are found in natural forests where chemicals have never been applied.
So where do the trees in forests find their food? All the food in forests are produced naturally via biological processes where organic matter with the help of microbes and their catalytic enzymes is biodegraded into minerals (nutrients) as a food source for plants. So it appears that the organically rich soil along with their naturally occurring biota is the key to plant growth and development.
Most plants at best have the capacity to uptake 20-30% of nutrients. Farmers supply fertilizer chemicals in the amount of 300 - 500 times that capacity to satisfy the plant’s needs. So where do all the excessive chemicals go? Some join the water table, some are dispersed into lakes, streams, and rivers and eventually end up in the ocean. Others are highly volatile, evaporating into the atmosphere while most stay tightly bound to soil particles and become unavailable to plants. This causes soil to become hard and contributes to its salinity, which negatively impacts the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of soils, undermining the flow of water and nutrients through the soil.
Each scoop of Bontera Soil Probiotic contains billions of beneficial bacteria, fungi and mycorrhizae and a mixture of readily available amino chelated micronutrients that work to promote healthy soil, and healthy roots and plants.
Several decades of excessive use of fertilizer chemicals along with pesticides and herbicides have severely impacted both the quality and quantities of beneficial soil microorganisms that are the heart and soul of any productive soil. Consequently, this unfortunate situation has also resulted in many new and more devastating emerging plant diseases. This is where Bontera microbial products come into play. We are replenishing those lost microbes and revitalizing our soils once again to become organically rich with thriving beneficial microbes.
Here is what microbes can do that chemical fertilizer won’t:
Microbes in soil are naturally occurring and degrade organic matter into nutrients.
Microbes have the ability to collect nutrients from the soil and deliver them to plant roots for uptake.
Microbes protect roots from harmful and disease-carrying insects.
Microbes fix atmospheric nitrogen into the soil for plants.
Microbes create and maintain an ecologically balanced and sustainable soil environment for plants to support their growth and development.