Can anybody tell me the usage of biofertilizers over plants?Are they superior to chemical ones?

Question

Can anybody tell me the usage of biofertilizers over plants?Are they superior to chemical ones?

Answer 1

If I give you grains of oat, wheat, rice or whatever you have in your diet and ask....

What is the utility of this in your nutrition?

You will be able to give me bookish answer.

But can you eat the whole grain without any processing?

Can you get the claimed nutritive value [from the books] by eating the unprocessed grains?

Possibly you can't even eat sufficient amount.

So, we have to process the grain.

Chemical are equivallent to unprocessed grain in the anology.

Biofertilizers are the ones that process the chemicals to absorbable form.

We add chemicals to improve their contents in soil by 2 - 10 folds.

There are certain biofertilizers that can improve the root volume, and nutrient bioavailability by 100 - 1000 folds.

I have given you the facts.

You decide about superiority.

Answer 2

yes..they do not harm soil like chemical fertilizers..they are useful to plants, but the effect takes some more time when compared to chemical ones.

Answer 3

There can be benefits to using both, simultaneously. This arises because we may simply not have enough bio-fertilizer available to grow adequate crops where we have severely depleted soils.

Where we have adequate bio-fertilizers they will be best, with a very few exceptions. We may need extra nitrogen fertilizer early in the growing season to avoid a problem produced by having too much dry straw no manure, so that straw breakdown will leave any crop nitrogen deficient.

If we have too little straw to absorb urine and compost manure, we can improve the result by adding super-phosphate to the manure as it is stored, such that the ammonia of the manure is not lost, and becomes ammonium phosphate.

The ideal of always having enough manure always having enough straw for the manure is sometimes achieved. But we have to say that these byproducts do have problems when we do not have the perfect balance.

When we use nitrogen fertilizer in spring to start breakdown of straw, we have to be cautious. As we approach end of season we are likely to have too much nitrogen fertilizer, and too much soft vegetative growth.

Our challenge is that when we add one nutrient we set in place imbalances later on, but nature itself creates imbalances? Yes and no. The reason that straw causes crops to be nitrogen deprived is that we attempt to incorporate them into the soil rather than leaving them as a mulch on the soil. Nature would have dropped that straw on the soil, not incorporated, not a claim on nitrogen.

But raw manure, where there has not been straw to compost it, will be a problem. We have difficulty spreading it evenly so that we do not get nitrogen burning of crops. We mitigate that but do not eliminate it when using super-phosphate plus volumes of water.

Green manure crops always appear to have very close to a perfect balance of nutrients. But we can increase the amount of that green manure by top dressing with chemical fertilizer. We can also increase it with irrigation. Both of those choices increase the rate at which we extract micro nutrients from the soil. Both need to be used in moderation.

Now just for clarification, oil can be used in creating nitrogen fertilizer. It does not have to be. And K or potassium is mined from the earth, Phosphate comes partly from a mine and partly as a byproduct of mining. So no part of commercial fertilizer must be made using oil, even though it has been convenient to use oil.

We can create ammonia NH3 or NH4-OH using wind power, water and air plus some catalysts. So we need not fear its disappearance. It becomes a renewable resource.

Answer 4

O yes biofertilizers are better incomparison with chemicals. they dont have side effect and harm ful effects. Biofertilizers are the products(biologicalproducts) of living things like animals and plants.Which are used as fertilizers.

they are like- the cowdung, Greenmenure, and dry plant leaves and etc. they halp in fertilizing the soil and help in the groth of the plant positively.

Answer 5

I'm assuming by "bio-fertilizers" you mean livestock manure, and composted things like law clipping, and leaves, as well as possible green manure crops?  (Green manure crops are where the farmer plants a crop, often mustard seed, with the express purpose of plowing the crop under for it to rot, and add natural matter to the soil)

I'm bias, since we are a permaculture farm, and ONLY use manures, and composted material, NO chemicals at all on our farm.

Chemical fertilizers are oil based.  If a farmer uses an oil based chemical fertilizer, that farmer is at the mercy (price wise) of the companies that manufacture the fertilizer, what current oil prices are on the stock market, and eventually the very real possibility that the world may run out of oil (Peak Oil).  

Chemical fertilizers also harm the soil over the years.  They leave behind salts, and break down the very structure of the soil, leaving it powdery, and very prone to wind, and rain erosion.

Chemical fertilizers are easier for the farmer to spread on his field.

Manures, compost, and green manure crops all BUILD the soil up.  If the farmer uses them, they actually end up with MORE soil, and not less.  The soil retains moisture SIGNIFICANTLY better.  The "bio-fertilizers" impart trace minerals, and micro nutrients to the soil that chemical do not have, or very often actually strip from the soil.

Soils that have "biofertilizers" applied to them have tons more microbial life per acre.  When I say tons, I do mean that litterally as weight...there is tons in weight more life that is supported in the soil.

The crops that grow in biofertilizer are more insect resistant, grow faster, healthier, and with more nutriants in the actual crops themselves.

It's a big deal, and a big source of pride for corn farmers in Iowa to produce the first, and the biggest corn.  To do that, they have a small patch of a few acres they pamper.  They apply composted manure to the few acres, NOT chemical fertilizers.  Problem is, it's very expensive to pamper that little corn patch, since most of the cattle have been moved to feed lots in other states.  So the manure must be imported at great expence.

Manure, compost, and green manures are indeed the best fertilizer.  They are not however, practical for our modern way of farming.  Farms have specilized too much, and grown too large.  You are either a Rancher raising livestock, or you are a dirt Farmer, raising crops.  The livestock no longer lives on the farms, even even anywhere close to them.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years