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A vital and often overlooked factor affecting the health
of your trees and shrubs is soil. In fact, improving your tree's
soil is very often the best possible thing you can do to help it thrive.
>Why Does Soil Need My Help?
Soil is not just dirt. Soil is an ecosystem where
thousands of different organisms coexist, often competing, but often
helping each other survive. Plants, animals, fungi, bacteria - all
have forged lasting symbiotic relationships with other species at some
point in their evolutionary histories. They rely on the benefits of
these relationships through times of hardship. Soil also contains
large numbers of mineral elements. The composition of these elements
varies greatly from region to region which is one reason that some plants
do well in certain areas, while others quickly die.
The tree in your front yard didn't evolve to grow in a
mown yard next to a driveway. It evolved in a forest with all of the
other organisms in that ecosystem. The soil of a tree's native
habitat contains the right composition of minerals and the proper mixture
of living things to enable the tree to prosper.
When a tree is planted in an urban environment, the soil
is almost invariably inadequate for ideal growth. It lacks certain
minerals, beneficial mycorrhizal fungi and nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
Add to this the fact that most urban soils are also severely compacted and
often polluted, you begin to see why something needs to be done.
What Can I Do to Improve My Soil?
Fortunately, there are steps you can take to ensure your
trees and shrubs have the soil they need. The first step is regular fertilization.
The second step is the addition of mycorrhizal fungi.
Mycorrhizae
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Mycorrhizae form when mycorrhizal
fungi infect newly forming non-woody roots as shown here.
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Mycorrhizae is a symbiotic relationship between beneficial
fungi and plants. In exchange for sugars and simple carbohydrates, the
mycorrhizal fungi absorb and pass on minerals and moisture required for
the plant's growth.
Over tens of millions of years plants have developed this relationship to
enable them to survive conditions of drought, extreme temperatures, and
periods of low soil fertility. Because mycorrhizal fungi live in and
around a plant's living root system, they effectively extend the root
system deeper into the soil, allowing a plant to take in more nutrients.
These organisms are a vital link in a plant's nutrient cycle.
In nature, mycorrhizal fungi are found on about 99% of plant species, but
in urban environments, the poor, compacted soils often lack this essential
fungi.
Almost all trees in urban settings will benefit from the addition of
mycorrhizal fungi to the soil, but different types of trees require
different fungi.
Give Your Tree The Soil It Needs
As a homeowner, the best contribution you can make to your
tree's health is the addition of beneficial mycorrhizal fungi to the soil.
For information on how to obtain the right kind of
mycorrhizal fungi for your trees, click
here.
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