Products
Products
Rapid Plant Establishment:
Suståne fertilizers are long lasting and are weed free to promote native plants, grasses, and forbs establishment. Minimizing soil erosion and weed growth, and the need for repairs and re-seeding and the time required to achieve soil stabilization.
In addition to carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen there are 13 other elements known to be essential for plant photosynthesis to occur. Different plants have different nutritional requirements. Nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) and potassium (K) are the three other elements that plants require in the greatest quantity; hence they are identified as the primary nutrients. Secondary elements are often required in larger doses, and tertiary or “trace” elements also referred to, as micronutrients are required in minute or “trace” amounts by plants.
The absence of essential nutrients is a growth-limiting factor. Soil micronutrient levels also affect soil microbiology and plant productivity. Supplying secondary and micronutrients is critical to plant health and soil productivity. Supplying small doses of secondary and tertiary nutrients (along with N, P and K) to crops and soils can provide both short and long-term benefits.
Humic Acid (H.A.)
is a component of humus, the end product of decomposition of organic materials. Humus and its constituents, humic acid, fulvic acid, and humin “have the greatest single influence on all physical. chemical, and biological aspects of our spaceship earth.” [from “Humic, Fulvic and Microbial Balance – Organic Soil Conditioning”, William R. Jackson, PhD.] H.A., which is soluble in dilute alkaline solution, and precipitated in a weak acid solution, is made of complex, long chain molecular structures comprised of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur.
Organic Matter - An Important Note:
It is the quality of the organic matter present in a soil or in an organic fertilizer that is most important, not the total quantity of organic matter. Raw manures (dehydrated or not) plant materials like straw, leaf mulch or wood fiber, animal meal and plant protein based “organic” fertilizers will oftentimes test higher quantity in total organic matter than does Suståne. Suståne has undergone thorough, aerobic composting, or humification before further processing. Organic matter must first be decomposed before soil microorganisms can release plant nutrients from organic fertilizers. This process requires large quantities of oxygen. The decomposition process creates biological oxygen demand (B.O.D.). In other words, soil microorganisms and plants require – or demand, an ample supply of oxygen to support healthy plant growth. Suståne does not take oxygen from the rhizoshpere. The nutrients and humus are immediately available to soil microorganisms. Su stane does not “tie up” or immobilize soil nitrogen by causing soil microbes to first digest raw organic matter.
Always remember that rule of the jungle is that soil microbes eat first, before the plants are fed. That is their job and it is an important one. The application of raw organic material to soils establishes a competition for oxygen between plant roots and soil microbes – and the microbes always win, often at the expense of supplying nutrients or available oxygen to the plants.
Microbial Diversity:
refers to breadth or range of microorganisms present in an ecosystem. Soil microbiology is so instrumental in many soil and plant functions that its importance to healthy plant establishment, erosion control and bioremediation cannot be veremphasized. Suståne, true aerobic compost contributes so much more than plant nutrition and humus – it sets the stage for expanding microbial diversity in weathered and eroded soils. Microbiologists and ecologists refer to these positive changes as enhancing “species richness diversity” (SRD). SRD is a measurement of diversity that indicates the number of different types of microorganisms present in a sample of soil or compost.
PAT2H Horticultural Consulting Services, Ryda, Georgia, 2009
Suståne 4-4-4 + 10% Biochar was evaluated on tomato seedlings and young plants.