At Carroll Property Services, we plant lots of Ontario native plants for our clients. One of our biggest concerns is how the plants will fare after we have left the job site. This is why we do everything in our power to ensure that our plants thrive in their new homes. Watering schedules are a big part of plant survival, but soil health can be just as important as the plants getting enough water. Using an organic fertilizer on your newly transplanted trees, shrubs, and perennials will give them the edge they need to come back from the stress of transplanting. In this blog post we will go over the type of fertilizer we use, what effect the fertilizer has on the soil microbiome, and where you can buy it for the lowest price!
Root Rescue Transplanter MS-CS is the brand of fertilizer we use for all of our transplanting jobs. This is an organic fertilizer which contains 18 different species of mycorrhizae & organic bio stimulants. Mycorrhizae (or mycorrhizal fungi) are a type of fungi which formed a symbiotic relationship with plants millions of years ago. The word mycorrhizae comes from the Greek root words “mykites” and “riza” meaning “fungi” and “root” respectively. The fungi lives underground where it forms a vast network of filaments connecting the roots of your precious plants to the surrounding environment.
As you can see in the image above, the roots of a plant have very little surface contact with the soil. However, the network of mycorrhizal fungi grows much faster than your typical root and has hundreds of times more surface area giving the plant access to resources that are out of its reach.
The nature of the relationship between plant and fungi is one where everyone benefits. The plants provide carbon to the fungi while the fungi provides the plant better access to water and essential nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, zinc, manganese and copper. These nutrients are found in compounds in the soil that can be hard to break down but the fungi does much of the heavy lifting in this department.
One added benefit of this transfer of nutrients is that more carbon is stored beneath the surface where it will remain for many generations to come. Mycorrhizal fungi are therefore essential for creating efficient carbon sinks and lowering your carbon footprint!
The help provided by these fungi makes the stress of being transplanted much more tolerable for plants. A healthy network of fungi can also be the deciding factor in the survival of plants during periods of drought. In a 4 year study by the University of Guelph, it was determined that “the treated plants maintained higher, more favourable overall water potentials over the drought stress period relative to the controls” and that “mycorrhizae inoculations improved overall drought tolerance” of the tested trees.
While this particular study did not mention anything about yield rates, I think it is safe to assume that the healthier treated tree would have higher yields than the dry, wilted control tree. You can read the full report here: Reducing Drought Stress in Transplanted Trees Using Mycorrhizae
Healthy forests and grasslands are rich in mycorrhizal fungi, but urban (and even rural) settings are often completely void of them. This is all thanks to common agricultural practices like tilling and monoculture farming which decimate mycorrhizae populations. Even if your soil is healthy, the simple act of digging a hole for transplanting can kill some of the fungi. This is why it is so important to supplement your soil with an organic fertilizer like Root Rescue.
To learn more about mycorrhizal fungi and their applications, check out our blog post here: Mycorrhizal Fungi – The Key to Better Soil and Plant Health
Thanks for reading!
Scott Carroll
Carroll Property Services
