Microbial Inoculants

What is a microbial inoculant?

Just like the human relationship with our gut microbiome, over millions of years of coexistence, plants have developed co-dependant (symbiotic) relationships with microbes in which both organisms feed and protect one another. In modern agricultural settings, whether field or greenhouse, we have often sought to eliminate microbes entirely, operating under the belief that microbes only cause disease. 

Of course, we now understand that both in our bodies and our fields, complex microbial communities are essential to health and maximum thriving. Root inoculants function much like human probiotics in that, by populating the space of the root system with “good” bacteria, they prevent “bad” bacteria from taking hold, and also facilitate the efficient uptake and metabolism of vital nutrients. 

In the rhizosphere, microbes execute a long list of tasks that benefit optimum crop growth including fixing nitrogen, solubilizing phosphorus, producing root protective structures like biofilms, helping stimulate the production of hormones that contribute to plant immunity, and many, many more functions. 

A microbial inoculant is a chance to restore the friendship that plants have cultivated with microbes across a long history of these organisms working together in order to thrive.