Soil Health and Valent Pt 1
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. Two of the biggest buzz words in agriculture these days are sustainability and soil health, both of which are used frequently at Valent Biosciences.Valent Senior Field Development Manager, Mike Riffle says the link for growers is found in Mycorrhizal fungi and a big part of what they do …
RIFFLE … “It’s interesting, Valent purchased a company, or Sumitomo purchased a company a few years ago called, Mycorrhizal Applications, and they’re up in Grants Pass, Oregon. And those folks figured out how to grow and mass produce Mycorrhizal fungi. And, they not only did that, they figured out how to formulate it and package it, so it could be available to growers.”
And now, Riffle says WE have it …
RIFFLE … “So, we have a series of products that could be applied to crops containing these Mycorrhizal fungi. And, the Mycorrhizal fungi colonizes the roots and it does all kinds of things after it colonizes the roots and starts growing with the plant.”
But, Riffle says it’s not exactly new …
RIFFLE … “It’s a fascinating story. This symbiosis with plants is known by scientists to be 500-million years old. So, this symbiosis has been happening for a very long time.”
Now, Riffle says we’re catching on …
RIFFLE … “But, just in the last hundred years, scientists have discovered it and really done a whole lot of work on it to try to understand what it means, especially for producing crops.”
Tune in tomorrow for more on Valent’s soil health mission and the natural process they use.