The Key to Water Productivity is Nourishing the Soil Microbiome

Feb 13, 2023

Are microbial products the key to helping with drought issues?

By Braxten Breen
Farms.com Intern

A product’s of Heliae Agriculture, PhycoTerra, is a microbial food product improving soil health, productivity, and water productivity.

Bruce McTavish, a representative of Heliae Agriculture, spoke specifically about the keys to water productivity when nourishing the soil microbiome at the 2022 Farms.com Western Precision Agriculture Conference & Ag Technology Showcase in November.

“In a teaspoon of soil, you find over a billion bacteria and a million fungi … just imagine what’s in an acre … if we just feed them and put them to work, you can really wake them up.”

McTavish reviewed that our crops need microbes, specifically fungi and bacteria, that are critical for their growth and development and will improve soil aggregation and nutrient uptake.

PhycoTerra offers a solution for nourishing microbes, it feeds the microbes, putting them to work, which should result in an increase in soil structure, resulting in healthier crops.

McTavish provided various examples and results from previous tests conducted by PhycoTerra consisting of untreated vs treated soil, consistent responses in various soil types, times to feed farm soil, and water holding capacity improvements.

For soil moisture, in one field test, the soil would only take up 0.83mm per day of moisture, where with PhycoTerra the soil had a much greater result of up to 1.45mm per day.

Learn more about some of the PhycoTerra field testing results by watching the video below.

Video: Our Own On-Farm Research Is the Best Source - Managing White Mold in Northeast Nebraska

If you assumed Nebraska was too hot and dry for white mold to be a problem in soybeans, think again.

This week we're featuring Galen Samuelson, a farmer and dealer from Wakefield, Nebraska, who knows all too well how devastating white mold can be.

"We don't have it consistently every year, but with our temperature and humidity, it can hurt us quite bad," Samuelson says. Looking for alternatives, he explains, "What I like about Heads Up is that it's non-harmful to the beneficial fungal colonies in the soil." Galen has been using Heads Up for several years now, after first hearing about it through a small ad in a regional newspaper. Watch below to hear about his journey.

When asked to write about Samuelson Seed, Galen said the following:

"Samuelson Seed is a 4th-generation, family-based company. It started with my grandfather, and I'm now starting to pass the torch to my son, Caleb."

"In the early 1990s, I started working with a company whose focus was on plant and soil health before those benefits were widely known. I've continued to keep plant and soil health the main focus in our farming operation decisions."