Viticulture and
Horticulture
1) For many years now our intensive
cropping areas such as viticulture and Horticulture
have been subject to extremes in terms of what soil
life can cope and function with. Soil microbes when
sufficiently populated can process and deliver to plants,
nutrients provided artificially as well as turn into
plant food all decomposed litter that is returned to
the soil.
They can also process a certain amount
of toxins eg sprays to prevent contamination to water
quality etc.
If the microbe population declines
for whatever reason (and there can be a number), functions
they are capable of decline and with the decline goes
everything from uptake of nutrient to all other processing
within the soil that they are capable of doing.
This has led in many cases to increased
fertiliser use, increased spraying of insects (disease)
and increased inputs of liquid supplements etc to the
industry in general in order to get an acceptable yield.
The down hill spiral of high input
farming has begun. Microbe populations decreasing, larger
fertiliser inputs required, pathogens increasing, soil
structure deteriorating.
2) In such a situation you
often find adequate soil nutrient levels of most nutrients
but the plants starving of essential nutrients not available
at critical times. (hidden hunger). This can effect
the crop from budding through until harvest testing
the grower to obtain an economic crop. What can be done
about this?
3) Generally in these situations
you will find the soil has become anaerobic. ( Lack
of air). The aerobic sites have decreased to a point
where the soil is not regenerating. The re aggregation
of the soil has decreased to a point where many functions
are lost. This has happened for a number of reasons;
- Soil compaction
- Unbalanced fertiliser applications
- Too many chemical sprays
- Poor drainage
- Poor microbe populations
- Bacteria, fungi ratios incorrect
- Poor fertiliser utilisation.
4) To correct the situation
the following steps are required;
- A quality assessment
-
A more balanced
fertilser programme
- Improved drainage
- Repopulate the soil microbe populations
- Bacteria, fungi
ratio corrected
- Feeding the soil life to ensure repopulation
continues
- Monitoring to make sure gains are made
5) The process to do this
is to add the fungi and bacteria to the soil. With
feeding in a
form that they can easily process the microbes will
further populate as well as undertake the many soil
functions
they
are
capable of doing.
We do this with Biological Suspensions
and microbial activators formulated specifically for
the individual situation.
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