Fruit Bites April 7-9
BL: Welcome back to another “Fruit Bites” brought to you by Valent U.S.A. With us again is Valent’s Allison Walston. And this week Allison, let’s talk about soil in the PNW?AW: Undisturbed soil is typically air, water, organic matter and mostly mineral nutrients. When we relocate, plant into or compost our soil, it changes.
BL: why are nutrients important in the soil?
AW: In order for plant roots to uptake nutrients, they need to be there in a form that the plant can uptake. in low levels, plants won’t grow. We can add the big 3, nitrogen, phosphorus & potassium to help adjust for plant needs. We can plant legumes to fix nitrogen. And we can use mycorrhizae.
BL: We typically have low phosphorus levels in our soils, what then?
AW: this creates plant stress, which triggers the mycorrhizal spores to germinate. Their hyphae can grow further into smaller nooks & crannies to get more phosphorus, therefore the plant gets more nutrients.
BL: Well, thanks Allison. Join us again next time for Fruit Bites, brought to you by Valent. Until then, I’m Bob Larson.