Rhizophagy and the Growers Program
Growers Mineral, Corp. introduced the process called rhizophagy in The Growers Solution Winter 2022 Volume 35 Issue 1 in the article "Rhizophagy and The Growers Program." We felt that the scientific explanation of the rhizophagy process gave significant credibility to the Growers Program. Also, we believed this knowledge would be helpful to farmers dealing with low commodity prices and high input prices. However, the years 2021, 2022, and 2023 were such that farmers did not have an interest in changing their fertilizer programs.
However, the recent article "Fertilizer Prices vs Corn Prices are Now Some of the Worst in History" may have some producers looking for a different approach to fertilization to help their ROI. With that in mind, we are using parts of the new addition to the Growers Resource Library "Soil Microbiology for the Farmer." In the next few The Growers Solutions, we will explain as simply as possible the rhizophagy process and its possible meaning for a successful ROI in the soil fertility world.
Since 1955, Growers Mineral, Corp.'s educational approach to explaining the success of the Growers Program has focused on the 3 phases of soil. Those three phases of soil are defined as physical, chemical, and biological. Of those various phases, the Growers Program placed the most emphasis on the biological phase.
By selecting the biological phase, Dr. V.A. Tiedjens focused the efforts of the Growers Program in a way that is in harmony with how the plant grows. Since the plant reproduces itself predominantly from the use of sugar it has harvested from sunshine, it is still true that the plant does require a small amount of mineral which the plant obtains mostly by trading its sugar to the soil microbiological life. The Growers Program concept explained that maintaining a high amount of oxygen (O) in the soil profile and limiting added toxins to the soil allowed the soil biology to furnish a very high percentage of minerals that were needed by the plant to create an economically profitable crop. Since 96% of healthy plant tissue is carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O), the other 4% of needed elements could be supplied mostly by assisting the mechanism of the soil biology.
The biological approach to growing crops has been disregarded for years by the agricultural establishment because the "science" of soil biology has not been as accepted as has the technology of added pounds of chemistry creating more pounds of harvestable production which can be monitored very accurately with mechanical technology. This probably explains why the agricultural establishment and agribusiness have focused on the physical (John Deere) and the chemical (Bayer) phases of soil.
However, in recent times the biological phase of soil is receiving more attention, which is very similar to immune therapy becoming the fastest growing phase of human medicine. The physical and chemical solutions of human medicine are now making room for biological solutions.
As the research in human medicine is opening the doors for a more biological approach to success, research into the biological aspects of plant growth are starting to come on the scene. In 2010, Australian researchers proposed the idea of "rhizophagy" in plant growth. This proposed idea believes that plants physically consume soil microbes in order to obtain the nutrition they need for their existence. This physical consumption helps stimulate the immune system of a plant in a similar way to how the human species nourishes its immune system. The best comparison for this idea is Grandma's old axiom "an apple a day keeps the doctor away." The early rhizophagy research and explanations seem to give the idea of the Growers Program a very high degree of credibility.
This is an excerpt from the Early Fall Growers Solution (2025) written by Jim Halbeisen, Director of Research.
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