Comment by DivingForGold
2 days ago
Although mycorrhizal fungi have their place in plant ecosystems, in commercial horticultural production their benefit is typically outweighed by fertilizers, which result in considerably faster growth and crop cycles. We have trialed and encountered significant results with other "natural" products, such as harpin proteins for ~20% increased plant growth, entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana for insect pest control, and Prestop (Lalstop G46) Gliocladium catenulatum (Strain J1446) for preventing pathogenic root fungus.
Note that fertilizer applications are not synergistic with mycorrhizal fungi, fertilizer applications typically prevent the benefits of mycorrhizal fungi, plants no longer need to rely on mycorrhizal fungi for nutrients. I have noticed an "explosion" of fertilizer and supposedly growth enhancing products touting their microbial benefits with labels that show long lists of various beneficial microorganisms, but it's mostly just marketing hype.
Regenerative agriculture advocates would argue that cultivating a permanent mycorrhizal fungi ecosystem in fields will lead to longer term yields and few if any inputs in the end. Adding a fungal product into a system that wasn't already conducive to natural growth seems like a recipe for minimal benefit.
For anyone not familiar, look up Gabe Brown's talks on growing soil.
> would argue that cultivating a permanent mycorrhizal fungi ecosystem in fields will lead to longer term yields and few if any inputs in the end
They should show up with data. My other concern is that regenerative farming advocates always seem to leave out labor inputs.
Gabe Brown says he uses cover crops, pastured poultry, and managed grazing on the same land as his primary crop and gets more calories per acre than monoculture farms, but also he has no chemical inputs, his soil is getting richer, and there's far less impact on the environment. And it's not like he doesn't have large farming equipment to do the work with. There's a learning curve and a risk factor in switching, but the alternative is to be dependent on variable fertilizer costs and government subsidies forever while the soil is depleted.
A lot of this is not about increased yield, but healthier more nutritious plants, a healthier soil that binds more carbon, a more diverse farmland supporting a more diverse set of insects and animals and so forth.
The monocropped modern agriculture is not only producing dead soil, farmers that become reliant upon exterior input supplied by global conglomerates (i.e. ther margins don't go to the person doing the farming, but everyone suppling the stuff the farmer needs), and causes a lot of damage to local ecosystems.
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It is extremely early days for these offerings. Synthetic ferts are a relatively mature technique and the related product offerings (which are now effectively commoditized) had state-subsidized R&D for several decades. Mycorrhizal inputs have had a hundredth of the R&D and only been used commercially for a few years at best.
Its not really a fair comparison. This is like comparing PDAs to desktop computers in 1991, and surmising that mobile devices are just marketing hype.