Local biological fertiliser company YLAD Living Soils is experiencing phenomenal growth due to the enthusiasm of farmers to move to a more sustainable way of agriculture where good yields can be achieved, not at the expense of soil health. YLAD Living Soils distribute Nutri-Tech Solution products exclusively, NTS are Australian leaders in biological agriculture demonstrating that there are sustainable and profitable alternatives to high input cropping.
The importance of soil health and balance is emphasised by YLAD Living Soils by providing their growers with technical knowledge and support to enable informed decision-making. Local grower and YLAD Living Soils Director, Bill Daly says ‘My aim is to increase production, while reducing inputs and the high expenditure that I have experienced over the last 30 years, at the same time re-balancing my soils, reducing weeds, disease and pests.
The health and vigour of emerging seeds sets the potential for healthy productive plant growth. The YLAD Living Soils Life-Force™ Seeding program sets the plant up for healthy growth where the plant can out compete weeds and disease. A rhizatonia study by the CSIRO found that slow growing wheat roots appear to accumulate proportionally more ‘bad' soil organisms then more vigorous growing roots.
Root pathogenic fungi cause major economic losses in agriculture each year, however, by nurturing soil and replacing beneficial soil fungi it can out compete disease causing fungi and reduce the amount of input chemicals required to control disease. Research by Professor Elaine Ingam has shown that establishing soil fungi is an important part of soil and plant health. Mychorrizal fungi that live on plant roots increase the surface area of roots increasing the amount of water and nutrient uptake. Fungal hyphae also bind soil particles together, creating stable aggregates that help increase water infiltration and soil water holding capacity, also preventing your top soil blowing away.
The Seed Dressing includes calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper and boron in combination with beneficial microbes. Nutri-Life Bio N is a component of the Four pack seed dressing that includes Azotobacter, a free- living nitrogen fixing bacteria that can trap atmospheric nitrogen and make it available for plants alleviating the use of high levels of nitrogen fertilisers which burn mychorrizial fungi from the roots therefore reducing the benefits it has on plants. Care is required to protect the helpful organisms in the soil.
Nutri-Life Bio P is a state of the art bacterial product which includes organisms to solubolise frozen reserves of phosphorus to improve the access of cereal crops to phosphorus from the soil for the full growing season.
Trials in southern New South Wales have shown that plants where the Life-Force™ seed dressing had been used had root development more than double, compared with plants without the Life-Force™ seed dressing. This is very important particularly in dry conditions, as roots are better developed and able to search for moisture and nutrients.
Fertiliser additions work best when there is a healthy foodweb in the soil, helping to move those nutrients to the plant, with less damage occuring when small quantities of fertilisers are added at any one time. YLAD Living Soils, in combination, down the tube at sowing include Guano Granules, Boron Humates and Zinc to supply the growing crop with nutrients that are desperately lacking in our soils. Guano is a form of soluble and slow release phosphorus and calcium that is available for the complete growing life of the crop, normally phosphorus supplies are locked up prior to the crop flowering. This full season supply of P allows for the crop to reach its potential yield while being ‘soft' on the soil biology.
To improve the efficiency of all added fertilisers, humate granules are placed down the tube to prevent any nutrients from leaching or locking up. Nitrogen supply is stabilised for 60-80 days longer in the life of the crop, preventing the leaching of huge amounts of nitrogen into our waterways and high levels of nitrates into our food supply. The use of humic acid in agriculture is becoming well documented for it's role in adding organic carbon to our soils and buffering plants from excess sodium and stimulating fungi in the root zone. Humates are an integral part of the widespread success of Life-Force™ fertility programs. A CSIRO project has identified that increased organic carbon inputs to soils as the key to natural root disease suppression resulting in a biologically more robust and sustainable system. CARBON INPUTS ARE THE KEY TO DISEASE SUPPRESSION.
At YLAD Living Soils we are conscious of the valuable soil ecosystem and we supply biological fertilisers to enhance soil microbiology, improving crop production and soil health. It is important to ask ourselves ‘what is it going to do for our soil life?' and is it going to have a positive or negative effect.
Speak to YLAD Living Soils Agronom .