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Don't Get Ripped Off: How to Choose Microbial Biostimulants · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, and today I'm going to be talking about microbial biostimulants.
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  Now, I've sold microbial biostimulants for many, many years,
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  about 10 years at least, and studied them for even longer than that when I was
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  an academic plant scientist.
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  So I know a fair few things about it, and just
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  wanted to give you a few pieces of advice about when you're purchasing them
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  what to look for first thing is always look at
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  the production dates or the
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  expiry dates on the back of the label and if it doesn't have one
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  then be wary find when
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  it was manufactured because that will be key to how much living microbes are
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  actually in it whether it's a liquid or a powder these are living things and
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  like all living things if they're alive they are in the process of dying and
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  bacteria die a lot faster in liquids than they do in powders and so.
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  But liquid formulations are a lot
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  faster to get going once you add them to your system so they have the advantage
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  there they're not they don't they wake up from dormancy a lot faster and you
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  can grow a lot more beneficial types in a liquid than you can in a dry powder
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  and then the drying process itself does harm the bacteria as well and it can kill some off.
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  So we're looking for that, especially when you're buying liquids,
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  when it was actually manufactured.
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  Have a look into the company making them. Do they have the ability to actually
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  ferment and brew microbes or are they actually just a distributor,
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  a rebrander, a diluter, a formulator?
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  And so very few hydroponic companies will be dedicated to that.
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  So you have to look at that.
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  This is for bacterial products mainly. Mycorrhizate also implies that.
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  As I don't manufacture them, I'm more than happy to tell you where I think you should go to get them.
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  And just like eutreema are the primary manufacturer of fertilizers,
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  biostimulants and biopesticides and we recommend you come to us for your fertilizers,
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  biostimulants and biopesticides, we recommend that you go to primary manufacturers.
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  If you're in the know and you want the best possible product then go to that for microbes as well.
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  So if you're in the UK legume technology is a fantastic product.
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  That is direct from the manufacturer they're based in nottingham you can't
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  always get them because they're often making microbes for
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  soy bean farmers in argentina and
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  canada and places like that that's the nitrogen fixing
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  bacteria but they do do a root fix product which is really good and i've bought
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  it in the past and very very concentrated so i definitely recommend that one
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  it comes as like a almost like a blood bag like a broth inside it that's a great
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  product you can get that direct and lots of people will be using them for their
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  microbes a lot of companies.
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  Outside of that if you there's a company called omex they are a customer a competitor supplier to,
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  utreema and they have a microbial product called biomex starter
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  and i always recommend that one for our arable customers it's
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  i think it's bacillus subtilis it's a single strain but
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  i think it comes from denmark where they manufacture it
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  and it's not them directly but they have a a relationship with
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  the company that that ferments that product and it's
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  very good product and i would recommend using it
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  biomex is very highly concentrated so check out
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  biomex starter you you would need to set up an account with them with omx but
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  they i think it's like a hundred pounds for a liter or something like that so
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  it's not cheap it's you get a hell of a lot not true like a hectare of land
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  so it's a good really good product that one i've used that in the past if you're
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  looking from for mycorrhizae, there is a company called.
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  Symbio M.
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  Symbio with an m on the end that's very important make sure you get the company
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  that's based in the czech republic
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  symbio m let's find their website yeah symbiom.cz the czech republic.
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  They produce mycorrhizae so you can buy the propagules or a
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  sort of water dispersible spore-based product
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  that you can put into irrigation lines so definitely recommend
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  that product we've used them we've used them for seed treatment
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  for our carrot customers and things like that in the past very
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  open about where we source our microbes because i don't want to pretend that
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  we are a fermenter we do produce one microbial product in-house
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  and that but that's specifically for arable crops
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  and that is for helping the
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  black the arable crop fight off a weed
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  called black grass we don't produce any other type of
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  microbes we could do if we wanted to but we're
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  too busy doing fertilizers biostimulants biopesticides if
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  you're in america i've got less knowledge of where you
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  can get the products so you might need to import them
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  or find out if you do know anyone who's a primary manufacturer then
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  let me know we used to when i was in previous company we
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  used to buy one from someone called john lbs
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  i think it was and he would never
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  ever answer any emails he didn't say where his products came from how he was
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  manufacturing them didn't say you could never find his address was just a domestic
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  address so when i took over running that company I quickly stopped buying them
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  from him he's probably dead now because he was an old bloke back in 2016.
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  And yeah so you always check out the company at
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  the very least just go on google maps and find out where they're based have
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  a look for any pictures of inside their facility do they look like the
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  sort of people who would have a massive fermenter like legume technology
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  or symbiom or omex and things like
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  that so if you're wanting to buy trichoderma as
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  a protective fungal product i would recommend trianum
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  p from coppert there is
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  another company that used to sell trichoderma recent
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  manufactured trichoderma i cannot for life of me remember
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  it which is really annoying chat gpt says
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  there's three manufacturers in europe isogro trichodex
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  and biocontrol technologies so they'll be
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  good sources italy spain and spain even
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  copper because they they're a large company they'll be
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  selling lots of the products so even if they're not the primary manufacturer
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  they'll still go through them fairly fast so you won't be getting old
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  stock which is the danger with microbials trichoderma
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  is not a it's a fungus but it's not a mycorrhizal it's a
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  protective fungus that sits in the
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  growing media and can absorb help with absorption of nutrients but also helps
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  protect as an antagonist to pathogens so it's a really good one to include alongside
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  bacillus microbes and mycorrhizal so that's why you'll often see it grouped
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  together if you see a load of bacteria.
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  Fungal like trichoderma and glomus mycorrhizae, glomus is the most commonly one,
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  all mixed together in a formulation and he says contains 80 different types
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  of microbes, then that normally means that they're a formulator,
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  they mix the products together, they're not actually the manufacturer.
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  If I was buying microbes, I would always buy.
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  Probably a bacillus blend and a trichoderma and mycorrhizae.
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  I may not even buy a mycorrhizae. I'd probably go for a bacillus first to get
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  that bump in establishment.
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  So if you're interested in microbes, then there's some good pieces of advice there.
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  If you thought that was interesting, then in addition to what we've talked about
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  previously on the podcast, often I talk about chemical or extract-based biosimilants,
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  then please do review the podcast.
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  Give it a good review on apple podcasts make sure you follow this podcast so
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  you don't miss an episode and check out utreema.co.uk and
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  while we don't sell microbes we do sell a number of products that
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  help stimulate the growth of microbes seaweed extracts humic
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  acids and biorational fertilizers such as liquid gold or gold leaf as it's called
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  in the us which feed microbes rather than kill them lots of fertilizers kill
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  microbes especially ones with extreme phs of which there are many in hydroponics.
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  Okay, thank you very much for listening. Until tomorrow, goodbye.