Restore your soil’s microbial activity with Essential Plant Probiotic

Microbes and plant health

Some people think that soil is an inert substance that simply holds nutrients and water for plants to absorb. In fact, healthy soil is a complex food web consisting of a vast network of microbes. These microbes control and regulate every aspect of plant health, from nutrient uptake to disease resistance. Essential Plant Probiotic contains live strains of the microbes plants love best. Adding a small amount to your watering can or hydration system on a regular basis ensures your plant always has enough beneficial microbes to stay happy and healthy.

Microbes and plant nutrition

Nutrients and minerals exist naturally in soil, but not often in ways that plants can readily absorb through their roots. Plants rely on microbes to break down nutrients and convert them into a form that is accessible to them. This is a truly synergistic relationship because plants give back to the microbes as well. Plant roots naturally release sugars, enzymes, and other organic compounds that feeds the surrounding microbes and fosters microbial population growth. It’s important to recognize the complex and delicate interrelationship between these organisms and the work they do to help each other grow, reproduce, and be healthy.

Plants can metabolize some nutrients on their own, which might explain why your plants continue to grow even if you have not replenished your soil microbes. But microbes do a lot of the heavy lifting and plants want to have them there! Supporting your soil’s microbial population takes some of the burden off your plants, letting them focus on producing new green growth, fruits, and flowers!

Microbes and plant disease

Beneficial microbes create hospitable growing conditions for plants by balancing pH levels, breaking down soil, and promoting nutrient uptake. But not all members of the soil network are friendly. Other microbes, fungi, and microorganisms known as pathogens harm your plants by altering the pH to unfavourable conditions, blocking nutrient uptake, or downright attacking and feeding upon plant material.

A strong and healthy microbe population is a plant’s best defense against pathogens. Beneficial microbes attack pathogens and regulate soil conditions so they and their plant hosts can thrive. A healthy microbe population will also outcompete pathogens for living space. When you actively support beneficial microbes, you are creating inhospitable conditions for pathogens to grow and providing your plant with its favourite tools to defend itself.

How to tell if you need Essential Plant Probiotic

Although you can’t see your plant’s microbial life with the naked eye, you can deduce its health by thinking about its growing conditions. Choose to apply Essential Plant Probiotic based on the environment and age of your plants:

Indoor plants

A plants’ microbial life begins deteriorating immediately after moving indoors. Plants rely on the rain, wind, and visiting insects to maintain healthy microbial levels, but these sources of environmental exchange are cut off when a plant moves inside. When deciding whether or not to use Essential Plant Probiotic, ask yourself how long your plant has been kept indoors. Think not only about how long your plant has been sitting on your windowsill, but also on the store shelf before you bought it. Within a year of bringing plants inside, you should think about supplementing with probiotic.

You can also ask yourself:

• Are my plants looking paler than usual?

• Are any struggling to bloom or put out new green growth?

• Have any struggled with pests this year?

• Are any looking limp?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, Essential Plant Probiotic may be your plant’s ticket to rejuvenation by restoring its beneficial microbial life.

Outdoor plants

Outdoor plants usually have more environmental exchange because they are exposed to the elements (rain, wind, visiting insects) so microbial life is more active, but constructed features such as walls and hedges can impact this flow. Even a plant’s proximity to other plants can affect the availability and health of soil microbes near its roots. Also, different soil compositions (sand, clay, etc.) foster different kinds of microbes, and your garden’s particular composition will impact its microbial communities. All outdoor soil can benefit from the soil conditioning and microbe boost provided by Essential Plant Probiotic outdoor blend.

Hydroponic systems

Hydroponic or soil-free growing systems contain none of the microbial life native to soil. Commercially prepared growing mediums such as peat moss and rockwool are typically sterilized to prevent contamination by harmful pathogens—but killing beneficial microbes as well. In a microbe-free environment, your plants will struggle to take in nutrients and ward off pathogens. So while you can feed vitamins through the system and keep plants growing, they won’t really thrive without microbial life. Essential Plant Probiotic indoor blend is an excellent supplement for all hydroponic systems.

How to use Essential Plant Probiotic

Using Essential Plant Probiotic is very easy - simply add a small amount to your mister or watering can. But it will take regular applications to fully recolonize your soil and see the great results we promise.

Here are our recommended dosages for different watering systems.

Do not apply Essential Plant Probiotic to flower petals or flowering buds.
Live microbes are a natural part of a plant’s leaf and soil ecosystem, but can wilt or damage growing and delicate petals.

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For more information

If you have any questions about using Essential Plant Probiotic, reach us using the form below.