SEPTEMBER 2017 GERMINATION.CA 21 Germination: What does it mean to promote positive interactions in the soil, and what makes plant nutrition, biostimulant and biological products attractive to growers? Jarrett Chambers: These products offer growers a chance to create better soil health by making a more active root system through proper seed nutrition, and make a more active and vigorous root system through natural extracts that work as biostimulants. That means the roots acquire more water and nutrients and create a better rhizosphere, which makes a healthier plant, which creates better interactions between the plant and the soil. With biologicals, we’re able to isolate ben- eficial microorganisms and propagate them to enhance those positive soil interactions in various ways. George Lazarovits: There’s a huge effort globally to bring these microor- ganisms into the plant by inoculation of the plants in the flowering stage. In years past is it was all about chem- istry — now growers are looking for other options as well. The most crucial element of a plant is its seed. Every seed has a huge amount of microbes on and inside of it. These organisms start to become biologi- cally active as the plants germinate. It’s assumed that a good portion of the plant’s microbiome comes from the seed. The rest comes from the soil, and we can actually influence that relationship in a positive way. Jon Treloar: It’s creeping into the conversation, the benefits of having a healthy soil microbiome. When you apply a biological to a seed, it gets into the ground. The microbes grow along the roots and persist through- out the season, whereas a chemis- try may give you efficacy for a few weeks at the beginning of the season. It’s a different paradigm, a different way of thinking. When a biological is applied to seed, it’s there for the life of the plant and ready to go to work for the grower. Russell Trischuk: Now that we’re diving more into the soil side of things, we find we get very positive plant advantages like root growth and nutrient uptake with these products. In the rhizosphere, in particular, we are also seeing these positive inter- actions. Starting to think about soil health is beginning to click with growers. When we can show them a positive benefit it’s not a hard direc- tion to take our customers in — they understand that there are benefits to using these products, and now we need to do a better job understanding what’s happening in the soil and why. G: What sort of efficacy do these products actually have in promoting those positive soil interactions? JC: There are a lot of variables. You can’t rob Peter to pay Paul. You can’t simply cut your fertilizer bill and say, ‘I‘m going to take that money and buy a biostimulant or a biological product.’ It won’t get you anywhere if the soil has poor nutrition. I always ask the question, ‘Where’s your latest soil sample, what are your yield goals, and what are you putting on for fertilizer?’ Once you’ve addressed those basic questions, then you can look at a biostimulant or biological. GL: Once growers start manipulating the microbial life in the soil and start enhancing it, their yields begin to go back up. If you take a microbial like a rhizobium, and you inoculate your plants, you can really see a notice- able yield benefit for a very reason- able cost. JT: It depends. We do a lot of retailer training about this. We spend time WHATDOESTHATWORDMEAN? Here’s a quick rundown of some of the terms included in this feature: Rhizosphere The region of soil adjacent to and surrounding the root of a plant. Biostimulant A formulation of compounds, substances and microorganisms that are applied to plants or soils to improve crop vigour, yields, quality and tolerance of abiotic stresses. Biological A substance derived from a living organism and used for the prevention or treatment of disease. Microbiome The microorganisms in a particular environment. An example of roots treated with a biofilm product manufactured by BASF.