Probiotics & Prebiotics: An Overview Of Soil Biologicals
The massive emergence of biologicals and biopesticides over the last several years has provided growers with many new tools to fight off insect pests, diseases, and other stressors on their crops. Thankfully, the industry continues to advance with new products developed to protect plants from ongoing challenges. Some of those new tools are prebiotics and probiotics — prebiotics, the molecules used to feed existing microbes, and probiotics, the beneficial microorganisms that can help improve plant growth and yield.
What are soil biologicals?
Soil biologicals are a super-powered way to improve the health and performance of our farm and fields. If you’ve ever looked at soil and wondered why it seems to lack structure or fertility, you’ve had the right idea. But there’s a major reason things don’t look their best: the soil lacks the microbiology that promotes structure and fertility.
Most of us know that maintaining healthy soil requires time, patience, and resources — but we might not realize just how much it costs us in the end. That’s where prebiotics and probiotics come in. They can help plants receive proper nutrients that may have had blockages in biological pathways and now need that extra push to get the soil biology working properly and efficiently.
Prebiotics
Prebiotics are products made up of molecules that feed the soil. They can boost microbial diversity and soil health by improving the growth of existing soil microorganisms in the soil–plant system.
Prebiotics can:
- Have a long shelf life since they do not contain live microbes like bacteria.
- Can be versatile and applied with other agricultural inputs
- Have the capacity to increase beneficial native microbial species
Prebiotics can be natural products such as biochar, compost, and animal manure. These products can enhance the soil structure and promote soil biological activity, improving microbial diversity.
Probiotics
Biologicals are a new type of agricultural input product that contains beneficial soil microbes, or commonly known as probiotics. Probiotics are beneficial microorganisms that can be added to the soil to improve soil health. They can promote nutrient-mobilizing properties, enhance root development, and improve natural biocontrol, leading to improved yield, and resilience to stress and climate change.
Probiotics come in many forms: solid, liquid, and/or gel. Probiotics can be unstable because they contain live microorganisms.
Probiotics can:
- Be complicated to combine with other agricultural inputs
- Do not necessarily feed already existing native microbial populations in soil
- Contain one or multiple strains of effective microorganisms
- Have a brief shelf life
Ag input manufacturers are finding new ways for growers to utilize probiotics by changing the delivery mechanisms. One company, 3Bar Biologics, ensures the microorganisms are viable and alive up until application on the soil. Their methodology enables microbes through a disruptive approach to biomanufacturing involving fermentation in the final packaging. Advantages include longer shelf-life, decreased application rate, and better field performance compared to similar conventionally produced microbes.
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Why are they important, and what do they do?
Probiotics and Prebiotics are biological agents that have been used as plant growth promoters. The use of these substances has increased in recent times with the development of new technology. Today, it is possible to produce a large number of ingredients in small quantities using microbial fermentation to produce species or strains of microbial organisms such as bacteria or fungi.
These biological ingredients are now used as they have been proven to offer many beneficial qualities, including helping maintain healthy digestive soil systems, reducing disease, and improving nutrient retention in the soil.
Farmers use biologicals to add beneficial microbes to the soil, improving soil health and microbial diversity. Many don’t know what these products do for the soil. The good news is farmers can use biologicals to help crops and soil grow healthier, bigger, and more productive.
How to select the right one
Each plant species has its own unique combination of biologicals and prebiotics that work well for it. By understanding which biologicals and prebiotics work with each plant species, we can create biologically superior plants with more disease resistance, higher yields, and better quality plants! Growers can test their soil to understand their fields’ physical, chemical, and biological state.
How to verify their performance
Growers and manufacturers can now team up to harness reliable tools and technology to verify product performance and get equipped with the best product recommendations.
Every grower is trying to solve a specific problem on their farm. Biome Makers BeCrop® Trials empower growers and ag input manufacturers to monitor product performance with a customized trial design. The trials are a series of tests comparing control and treatment blocks over multiple time points and under various conditions. By demonstrating input performance to match the growers’ needs, they can ensure the ag input manufacturers are the right solution provider.
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Conclusion:
Today’s market for soil biologicals is established worldwide. The demand for these products continues to grow every year in both developed and emerging markets. With this growth comes an increasing interest in understanding the complex dynamics of rapid microbial expansion.
Soil biologicals can be a valuable plant health tool that can help grow healthy plants. The keys to success lie in the effective use of soil biologicals, microbial inoculants and materials, customized design of trials, and accurate interpretation of results.