I found this fascinating
Japan has its own "wee beastie" that make phosphorus available to plants!
Indigenous microorganisms which solubilize mineral bound
phosphates by the excretion of chelating organic acids!
Wow!
Back to my point about
each county needing to explore its own biological zoo in virgin land before it is too late.
Quote:
Utilization of Phosphate Solubilizing Microorganisms
Japan has only very small amounts of rock phosphate, and most of its soils immobilize phosphate ions into unavailable forms. Rock phosphate which can be mined by current technology is predicted to become exhausted in about 100 years' time.
Therefore, there is a strong interest in developing alternative sources of phosphate fertilizer. Many countries are studying the direct utilization of
rock phosphate. Australia has developed "biosuper", i.e. pellets composed of rock phosphate, sulfur and sulfur-oxidizing bacteria. Japanese scientists are very interested in the solubilization of bound phosphate in soil which has accumulated phosphate from repeated, heavy applications of phosphate fertilizer.
While more than 70% of total phosphate is present in organic forms, such as inositol phosphate in volcanic ash soils, there are very few
indigenous microorganisms with a strong ability to decompose inositol phosphate in the soil. On the contrary, Japanese soils contain many indigenous heterotrophic microorganisms which solubilize mineral bound
phosphates by the excretion of chelating organic acids.
In grassland soils, phosphate solubilizing microorganisms made up 1% of bacterial populations and 10% of fungal populations (Nishio 1985).
Tinker (1980) raised doubts on the utilization of heterorophic phosphate solubilizing microorganisms, because they need a large amount of organic matter before they can excrete organic acids.
Even if phosphate is solubilized, phosphate ions are incorporated into the
microbial biomass, so roots cannot absorb enough
of them.
Thus, we adopted the following strategy:
a) The addition of a large amount of organic matter makes phosphate solubilizing (PS) microorganisms proliferate and these solubilize bound phosphate.
b) Solubilized phosphates are incorporated into the microbial biomass during other microbial multiplication, using organic matter.
c) Once the organic matter becomes exhausted, the microbial
biomass decreases and releases phosphate into the soil.
d) The death of the microbial biomass can be accelerated by various soil treatments, including tillage, drying, liming and sterilization.
e) Plants can absorb phosphate after microbial proliferation has ceased.
f) The absorption of phosphate by plants can be accelerated by inoculation
with AMF.
Experimental Evidence
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This is an interesting article, a link from the
TP list home site
Microbial Fertilizers in Japan
I only just learnt this about Hypography
Quote:
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