Current Fertilizers

 

Plant fertilizers have been around for more than 200 years starting with gypsum and evolving into the plethora of chemical options we have today. But as we look back on the recent 40-50+ years, the use of chemicals often makes people cringe. Why? Because they are often mishandled, abused, or are even just plain dangerous. Unsustainable fertilizing practices have caused large-scale changes to Earth’s cycles through soil degradation, greenhouse gas emissions, and waterway eutrophication (Amundson et al, 2015; Steffan et al, 2015). There is a desperate need to change the use of mineral fertilizers to more organically friendly solutions. 

 

Fans of sports fields demand lush green turf. Players demand strongly rooted grass and soft blades to prevent injury.  With current fertilizing solutions, sports turf struggles to stay green, and roots do not reach their full length. There are often diseases and dead spots in the turf. Many over correct by adding too much fertilizer, which can get into the groundwater and can be harmful to the environment. Frequently laying new sod can get expensive, fast. Plus, there’s all the effort of transporting it and increasing one’s carbon footprint in the process. Even with the types of chemicals used for fertilizers, last year’s applications can poison this year’s growth as it lingers in the soil and transforms into harmful compounds. This not only kills your grass but can kill all of the life living in the soil. 

 

The Solution

 

Mother nature figured out long before humans how to keep the earth sustainable and healthy. How do we do what she does with sports turf? The answer is simple: microbes. Microbes have only recently been identified as the heroes that help the earth thrive. They take out the headache of dealing with too many mineral fertilizers as they use the carbon sources and organic matter before them to make the soil better. Most gardeners and organic farmers have realized that creating environments for microbes to live in not only produces healthier, stronger, sustainable plants, but also takes practice. The internet is littered with opinions, advice, and old wives’ tales of what makes a good microbial niche and what doesn’t. Good compost can take years to establish—if one were to have the time to practice. Furthermore, you could say these organic gardeners and farmers are playing Russian roulette—you put some ingredients together to rot and hope that microbes grow. They can often be successful, but it’s never quantified or guaranteed.

 

What all of these solutions lack is confidence. How does one know for sure that the microbes known to help plants chelate out heavy metals, fix nitrogen, or lengthen roots will be in their particular pile of compost? DNA sequencing is quite expensive and counting the number of microbes in a sample is just as costly.

 

BioSaphe’s products already have the microbes that have been proven to be in healthy soil, in the right amounts. We have taken what mother nature has shown us through research and put it in our products so you don’t have to guess. Best of all, we do the tests to make sure they are present when we register our labels. Our goal is to create healthy, safe, and sustainable fertilizers. Many of our products are organic. We know being registered organic helps relieve stress about if what you’re applying is actually good for the grass, and for the planet. Save yourself worry, and time... and get excited!

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Why Microbes Help the Planet

 

Microbes are a game-changer when it comes to conservation. A handful of healthy soil contains millions of microorganisms, that are important to the health of the earth. Microbes have been known to breakdown metabolites and poisons, fix nitrogen, lengthen roots, and produce natural plant antibiotics, just to name a meager few (Woappi et al, 2013). This is how mother nature has been able to do it for millions of years. Her secret army of bio-organic organisms are the tiny little guys unseen to the naked eye. They are the movers and shakers. They are what keep decomposing matter recycling, plants thriving, roots deepening, and sustainability possible.

 

What Our Products Do

 

Our company is ecstatic to share our sustainable, healthy fertilizers with everyone. We take pleasure in serving mother earth, reducing greenhouse gases, and being efficient with water. How do we do it and what can we promise with our microbial products? We can promise longer, stronger roots with healthy fungi. Knowing which microbes do what, we have blended in the right amount to get roots growing into places they otherwise would not have been able to reach. In turn, this conserves water (Choudhury et al, 2018).

 

Furthermore, Soil microbiota can also boost nutrient transfers to plants, and create enzymes (Jacoby et al, 2017). The soil is full of nutrients that are not in plant-available forms. Instead of constantly dousing the soil with chemicals, our microbes turn those unavailable nutrients, into available nutrients for your turf. This includes nitrogen-fixing bacteria to create that rich dark green grass the fans love (Berg et al, 2002). In a sense, the microbes themselves are recycling as they transform nutrients. Longer roots and quality nutrients create genuinely happy, healthy, and stronger grass.

 

How Does the Cycle Work? 

 

It is wise to keep in mind, that having the right blend of microbes is not enough. There are two major factors we have also taken into consideration when designing our fertilizer plan: plant life cycles, and microbe life cycles. We are aware that if one is not careful—grass can flower too quickly, and Turf managers

want their grass to stay in the growth state. It is a delicate balance to keep the grass from moving from the vegetative to reproductive stages, as this will harden and shorten the life of the grass. Knowing plants love schedules, we have engineered our program to continuously cycle so the grass gets nourished frequently. If the turf is being fed, it will grow—no matter what.

 

Furthermore, microbes need to have the perfect soil condition and food sources to survive—and they are sensitive (Dupuy et al, 2016). Our cycled program helps them grow exponentially, and when growth starts to flatten out, we fertilize to keep the grass strong and start all over again.

 

Each of the products in our plan plays a special role in these developmental processes. We start out using a complete fertilizer to satisfy nutrient needs while microbes grow. This keeps the grass green while roots dig deep. Two weeks later we add in our Sustain solution to perk up the grass, create a regenerating ground for the microbes, and make the soil stronger. Sustain’s zinc micronutrient is essential in the developmental process and keeps grass actively growing. As this cycle repeats itself every month, the grass gets precisely what it needs when it needs it, the microbes continue to thrive and work, and the overall health, strength, and color of the turf becomes richer than ever before.

 

What Makes Our Plan Unique?

 

Besides the fact that no other company is currently selling microbes to sports turf managers, our program is also unique in its timing. As mentioned previously, knowing what plants and microbes need when they need it, helps us to be efficient with resources, conserve water, and helps plants to be more sustainable. Again, plants love schedules and are constantly aware of what is happening, when it happens. Over time your grass learns to expect the help that comes from our microbes, and it deepens your turf’s ability to grow even stronger. Our fertilizers do not just keep your grass alive; it makes it stronger and stronger with each month. As mentioned previously, many of our products are registered organic. Because of the nature of organic certification, we can guarantee that our products will degrade in healthy ways thus keeping the soil healthy.