The Benefits of Compost
The benefits of using compost include soil fertility enhancement, nutrient
cycling, water retention, disease suppression and improved root growth.
The recycling of community green waste such as grass, leaves, and tree and
brush clippings into a valuable soil conditioner that can be returned to
local gardens is something we can all feel good about.
Compost is also beneficial in these ways
- Improves overall soil quality by supplying significant quantities of
organic matter
- Improves conditions for plant growth, such as water-holding capacity
- Improves microorganism and earthworm proliferation
- Binds nutrients
- Allows plant roots to spread out more widely, thus preventing erosion
- Gradually releases nutrients
- Helps suppress plant diseases
- Can bind and degrade specific pollutants
- Can provide for greater drought resistance and more efficient water
utilization
- Provides nutrients in the form of macro and micronutrients (while
essential to good plant health, not to be confused with fertilizer)
- Provides soil biota, including microorganisms such as bacteria, protozoa,
actinomycetes, and fungi (which all promote healthier plants and soil)
The Benefits of Compost Tea
Compost Tea is a soil and foliar inoculant with beneficial microbial
organisms that serve a range of purposes. One major benefit is disease
suppression via beneficial microbial colonization at potential infection
sites. Reduced amounts of powdery mildew, botrytis, root and stem rot
result with regular compost tea usage.
- Aggressive fertility cycling allows the benefits of amendments to get
into your plants more easily. Fertility is based on microbial activity;
as microbes digest soil and fertilizer particles, nutrients are made
available to your plants.
- Increased root growth allows for increased nutrient uptake and larger
plants. Compost Tea is an excellent carrier for organisms such as
mycorrhizae, which promotes root expansion and more extensive nutrient and
water collection.
- Increased water retention allows for even soil moisture and plant
nutrition utilization. Decreased water stress translates into steady,
vigorous growth and proper nutrient availability throughout the growing
season.
The Benefits of Mycorrhizae
Mycorrhizae form a mutualistic relationship with the roots of most plant
species. This mutualistic association provides the fungus with relatively constant
and direct access to carbohydrates, such as glucose and sucrose supplied
by the plant. The carbohydrates are translocated from their source
(usually leaves) to root tissue and on to fungal partners. In return, the
plant gains the benefits of the mycelium's higher absorptive capacity for
water and mineral nutrients (due to comparatively large surface area of
mycelium:root ratio), thus improving the plant's mineral absorption
capabilities.
Plant roots alone may be incapable of taking up phosphate ions that are
demineralized, for example, in soils with a basic pH. The mycelium of the
mycorrhizal fungus can, however, access these phosphorus sources, and make
them available to the plants they colonize.
Mycorrhizal plants are often more resistant to diseases, such as those
caused by microbial soil-borne pathogens and are also more resistant to
the effects of drought.
From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycorrhiza
Types of Mycorrhizae
Mycorrhizae may be classified as: endomycorrhizae and ectomycorrhizae. Endomycorrhizae enter the cells of the root cortex. Ectomycorrhizae colonize plant roots but do not invade root cortex cells.
The most common form of endomycorrhizae are the vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizae; it is estimated that 80 percent of all plant species may have these mycorrhizae.
From lifeofplant.blogspot.com/2011/03/mycorrhizae.html
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