The concept of a living soil is new to most gardeners but not new at all to mother nature
. In nature, living soil organisms like mycorrhizae fungi and nitrogen fixing bacteria are cornerstones of natural growing. Mycorrhizae are a group of fungi that form a symbiotic relationship with a plants root system. These microscopic fungi are able to colonize and reproduce at very rapid rates. The fungi colonizes itself and inoculates the plants root system, feeding on waste product of roots and in return producing a high phosphorous plant food that is immediately available to the plant and easily absorbed through its root system. A true symbiosis is formed between the mycorrhizae fungi and the plants root system. The benefit is more aeration from the removal of these wastes around the root zone and most importantly a free and permanent source of on demand, high phosphorous plant nutrition, delivered right to the plants root zone, ready to use. What could be better than that? These living soil beneficial have been all the rage for indoor garden centers and high end growers for many years now.
It turns out that they have been being used in commercial agriculture to provide a higher quality, but more importantly, a faster growing product for many years now. It turns out one of the biggest users of beneficial and specifically Mycorrhizae fungi are the Christmas Poinsettia growers. As Christmas is December 25, this does not leave much time for indoor growers to produce these beautiful flower filled gifts. The secret is using lots and lots of probiotic beneficial bacteria and fungi. It speeds up the time of production and gives them a higher quality plant with more roots and more capacity to handle temperature and or moisture/ water drought better than lesser developed root systems.