Northland Farmer Grant Aiken has a great farm in a picturesque location in Northland. In July Grant hosted a biological field day at his property. His soil fertility was excellent as seen from the soil tests provided by Avoca Lime Company. Cherryle Prew of the Soil Food Web was the guest speaker and in the field she dug a hole and did a soil assessment commenting that the biology function was lower than optimal with poor worm numbers and structure. Grant was disappointed so decided to look at utilising a biological product to enhance his soil and microbial activity and support the fertility program he had in place. Luckily for us EMNZ also attended the field day and have since begun to work with Avoca in the North.
After speaking with his Rep Avoca recommended 100Kg of their Synergy Boost which is a product that contains 2 different types of both Nitrogen and Sulphur and 5Kg of EM Fert Enhance (our granular product). EM Fert Enhance is our microbial inoculant that enhances fertiliser efficacy in the soil while also stimulating soil biological function. He decided to treat his worst paddock to see what the advantages of using this blend and a biological would be.
3 and a half weeks later the Rep went out to visit after Grant called to say that the pasture was bolting out of the ground. The pictures below show the complete change in soil health and biology with worms now in abundance. The clover percentage has increased significantly and this paddock is now outperforming the others in his rotation. The smile on Grants face to the right tells the full story.
What is EM Fert Enhance?
This dry inoculant is a Soil Enhancing mixture of quality natural materials which have been carefully fermented with soil enhancing EM microbes. These natural materials provide a ‘home’ for the microbes allowing prolonged activity.
The function of the microbes in EM creates a more efficient use of added nutrients, generating a better growth response from fertiliser inputs. They do this by solubilising nutrient compounds to make them available for uptake by the plants root system; this also includes compounds previously unavailable to plants. In addition microbial activity is stimulated in the soil to contribute towards improved plant growth.
