Category: Beneficials in the garden

Better Yield and Soil Health with Intercropping: The Benefits of Growing Crops Together

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Intercropping is a farming technique in which multiple crops are grown together in the same field. This method has been used for centuries and has numerous benefits for the soil, crops, and the environment.

Here are some of the benefits of intercropping:

Increased Yield: Intercropping can increase yield by making the most efficient use of available space, light, and resources. By growing multiple crops together, farmers can make use of different root systems, growth patterns, and nutrient requirements to optimize their use of the land.
Soil Fertility: Intercropping can help to improve soil fertility by adding organic matter to the soil and fixing nitrogen. Leguminous crops, such as beans or clover, can help to fix nitrogen in the soil, which can be used by subsequent crops.
Weed Suppression: Intercropping can help to suppress weeds by competing with them for light, water, and nutrients. This can make it easier to control weeds and reduce the need for herbicides.
Pest Control: Intercropping can also help to control pests by attracting beneficial insects, such as ladybugs and lacewings, which feed on harmful insects. Additionally, different crops can have different susceptibility to pests, so intercropping can help to reduce the spread of pests.
Biodiversity: Intercropping can help to increase biodiversity in the agricultural landscape, which is important for the health of the ecosystem. By growing multiple crops together, farmers can promote a healthy and diverse ecosystem.

In order to get the most benefits from intercropping, it is important to choose the right crops for your area and to plant them at the right time. It is also important to consider the specific needs of each crop and to carefully manage the intercrop mixture.

By incorporating intercropping into your agricultural practices, you can help to increase yield, improve soil fertility, suppress weeds, and control pests. Whether you are a small-scale farmer or a large-scale producer, intercropping can be a valuable tool for improving the health of your soil and the environment.

Agriculture Beneficials in the garden

The Benefits of Cover Cropping: Improving Soil Health and Biodiversity

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Cover cropping is a technique in which farmers grow crops specifically for the purpose of improving the soil, rather than for harvest. This method involves planting cover crops, such as clover, rye, or vetch, in between regular crops in order to provide numerous benefits for the soil and the environment.

Here are some of the benefits of cover cropping:

Soil Fertility: Cover crops help to add organic matter to the soil, which can improve soil structure, water retention, and fertility. They also help to fix nitrogen in the soil, making it available for future crops to use.
Weed Suppression: Cover crops can help to suppress weeds by competing with them for light, water, and nutrients. They can also help to reduce the growth of harmful weeds by creating a thick canopy that shades the ground.
Soil Erosion Control: Cover crops can help to reduce soil erosion by holding the soil in place and improving the soil structure. This is especially important in areas with high wind or heavy rainfall.
Pest Control: Cover crops can also help to control pests by attracting beneficial insects, such as ladybugs and lacewings, which feed on harmful insects. They can also help to reduce the growth of harmful pathogens in the soil.
Biodiversity: Cover cropping can help to increase biodiversity in the agricultural landscape, which is important for the health of the ecosystem.

In order to get the most benefits from cover cropping, it is important to choose the right cover crops for your area and to plant them at the right time. It is also important to terminate the cover crop before it goes to seed, in order to avoid the spread of unwanted plants.

By incorporating cover cropping into your agricultural practices, you can help to improve the health of your soil, reduce the growth of weeds and harmful pathogens, and promote biodiversity in the agricultural landscape. Whether you are a small-scale farmer or a large-scale producer, cover cropping can be a valuable tool for improving the health of your soil and the environment.

Tags cover crop, Cover Cropping

Agriculture Beneficials in the garden Garden Tips and Ideas Nature Organic Gardening Sustainability The Science Of Growing Urban Gardening

Azospirillum Brasilense Bacteria (Azos) And Why Every Gardner Needs It.

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Once again this is an example of how one must feed the SOIL not the plant. Nature has already thought of everything you need and provided it somehow, all you have to do is learn to restore what has been lost. Many fungi and bacteria have been killed off by spraying and other pressures of modern Western life. So here is a knowledge bomb of one of the hardest working bacteria in your garden, and maybe on the planet,

Azospirillum Brasilense, commonly referred to as Azos or A.Brasilense, is one of the most well-studied plant growth promoting bacteria. It is considered a free-living soil bacterium that has the ability to affect the growth of numerous agricultural crops worldwide through the excretion of various hormones and the bacteria’s ability of nitrogen fixation.

Pull Nitrogen From Thin Air.

Even though you and I breath oxygen and plants breath carbon dioxide, the atmosphere is actually comprised of around 80% nitrogen which is in the form of N2 atmospheric nitrogen that is not conventionally available to plants. Nitrogen is a key component in growing anything. it drives chlorophyll production keeping the plants dark green and happy. It is a huge part of amino acids and other compounds that keep your plants strong and healthy. It is a part of every major protein molecule, and yet soil is often lacking enough N. Chemical fertilizer could provide this N, but they are expensive and can be dangerous.

Somewhere along the evolutionary development of the “Plant – Soil – Microbial Matrix”, certain bacteria began to specialize in tasks to enhance plant growth, which in return provided the microbes with a food source exchange opportunity. A select group of bacteria classified as “Diazotrophs” began to supply nitrogen to plants from a range of sources, including decomposed plant litter, dead micro-organisms, and sequestration of atmospheric nitrogen.

Azos is a particularly efficient agent originally isolated in the Amazon Basin where the lack of soil, the reapid breakdown of any vegetation by hungry microbes, and the environmental conditions which require growth to survive is a fundamental proposition of the ecosystem. Azos specialized in the highly-efficient conversion of the N2 form of nitrogen into plant-available NH3 ammoniacal nitrogen. Azos is so efficient that between 50-percent and 70-percent of all the nitrogen required by most crops can be supplied by this organism. Azos benefit to plants is not limited nitrogen-fixation alone. Azos also acts as a growth simulant, catalyzing the release of a natural growth hormone in plants. This naturally-released hormone increases root development and optimized the harvest potential of your garden. Together, Azos and mycorrhizae fungi work symbiotically to help ordinary plants become the fullest they can be (read about mycorrhizae in this post).

Azos can be used as a cloning solution, though I have not tried it personally.

So grab some for your spring transplants and improve your crop this summer.

Tags Azos, Azospirillum Brasilense, nitrogen deficiency, Nitrogen fixing, Nitrogen fixing Bacteria

Agriculture Beneficials in the garden Garden Tips and Ideas Nature Organic Gardening Sustainability The Science Of Growing Urban Gardening

Top 5 Reasons To Use Mycorrhizae, Friendly Fungi And Fabulous Friends For Gardeners

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Do you want way to naturally and organically produce more food from your garden or farm. Well, nature provides. Mycorrhizae is a fungi that will rock the roots of most plants and show a HUGE gain in size and yield. In combination with Azos bacteria, the two can nearly grow a plant in anything. So here is some info and The Top 5 Reasons To Use Mycorrhizae.

Top 5 Reasons To Use Mycorrhizae In Your Garden.

5. Can give your plants up to 10000% more root mass (yes 10000%!)

4. It makes a plant heartier and more resistant to drought, pests and disease.

3. Use less water to grow even better plants.

2. Use less compost and fertilizer, meaning less work, energy and waste go into your garden.

1. Plant yield and growth will explode!

Runner Up: They look really cool when you see them pop up on your seedlings.

Mycorrhizae (or Myco’s for short) form a mutually beneficial relationship with the roots of most plant species. Let me simplify the science. The fungus colonizes roots of plants and breaks down certain nutrients for the plant, in return for those nutrients the plant feeds the fungus the sugars it so craves, its just a fungus with a sweet tooth looking for its next fix, which it is willing to work for. The mechanisms of increased absorption are both physical and chemical. Mycorrhizal mycelia, tiny little hairs which you can see on the roots, are much smaller in diameter than the smallest root, and thus can explore a greater amount of soil, providing a larger root mass for absorption of water and nutrients. While only a small proportion of all species has been examined, 95% of those plant families are predominantly mycorrhizal. And here is the real kicker, it may be myco’s that allowed waterborne plants to move to the dry land many millions of years ago!

Mycorrhizae should be everywhere, but due to pollution, runoff, pesticides, herbicides and anti-fungal sprays, mycos are missing in many gardens and raised beds, not to mention all indoor potted plants that are started with sterile soil.

Two Types, Two Jobs, Too Easy

There are two types of mycos, endo and ecto. Rather than bore you with my poorly explained science, I will simply tell you that endomycorrizae are for most vegetable and fruit species in your garden (spinach and lettuce type plants do not colonize with it, though it will not hurt them either), and ecto are for a lot of trees and some flowers such as roses and orchids. I just generally get a mix of ecto and endo so that it can both colonize the plant I am planting and rebuild the soil by possibly colonizing other areas and plants.

Technically there is a third type, but it is for bogs and not commonly sold or needed.

You can spray on myco, you can use it as a root inoculate when you transplant or plant, or you can “drill’ a small hole in the soil and spray or sprinkle some in the hole for existing plants. The key is to get it in contact with the roots.

So have heavier yields with less fertilizers and compost for less than $20 an acre. And I will give you a little tip that the guy at the garden center may not. You can use a small amount of myco and culture it in your potting soil, use it in house plants and then put that medium in the garden when done recycling the myco or you can even grow your own with certain grasses etc, but I just find it easier to buy a box or two a year (about a pound) for our whole farm to use.

Here is a good video if you want more info, the more you know, the more you can grow.

Research shows that the lack of mycorrhizal fungi can create problems with many plants, shrubs and trees when they are growing in our gardens, so make sure you get some before this spring.