Microbial inoculants, bacterial fertilizers and bio-organic fertilizers differ greatly - figure it out before you buy

By conservative estimate, about 1/5 of China's farmland is currently polluted. Crops grow under such adverse conditions, various pests and diseases occur frequently, and large amounts of pesticides have to be used. The quality of agricultural products is also deteriorating, and people can no longer taste the pure, rich flavor of the melons and fruits of the past. Soil problems have reached a point where people have to pay attention to them, and microbial fertilizers that can improve soil and enhance crop quality have attracted attention, becoming an industry development trend.

Microbial fertilizer, abbreviated as bacterial fertilizer, refers to a class of fertilizer products that take the life activities of microorganisms as the core and enable crops to obtain specific fertilizer effects. It uses the life activities and metabolites of microorganisms to improve soil structure and increase soil fertility, thereby achieving the goals of increasing yield, improving quality and reducing the use of chemical fertilizers. When choosing bacterial fertilizers, many farmer friends are often confused by the three terms microbial inoculant, microbial fertilizer and bio-organic fertilizer. Below is an introduction to the differences among the three.

1. Microbial inoculant refers to a live bacterial preparation made by processing target microorganisms (effective bacteria) after industrial production and propagation. It has the functions of directly or indirectly improving soil, restoring soil fertility, maintaining the balance of the rhizosphere microbial flora, and degrading toxic and harmful substances; when applied in agricultural production, through the life activities of the microorganisms it contains, it increases the supply of plant nutrients or promotes plant growth, improves the quality of agricultural products and the agricultural ecological environment.

2. Compound microbial fertilizer refers to a live microbial product made by compounding specific microorganisms with nutrients, which can provide, maintain or improve plant nutrition and increase the yield of agricultural products or improve their quality. Microbial inoculant is simply a live bacterial preparation, with no other nutrients inside (N+P2O5+K2O, medium and trace elements, biological bacterial cell protein, organic matter, activated carbon, activated calcium, humic acid, etc.). This is the most obvious difference between microbial inoculant and microbial fertilizer. The bacterial strains in microbial inoculant have high purity, and the effective live bacterial count is ≥5 billion/g. Microbial fertilizer generally has an effective live bacterial count of ≥20 million/g.

3. Bio-organic fertilizer refers to a type of fertilizer that combines specific functional microorganisms with organic materials mainly made from animal and plant residues (such as livestock and poultry manure, crop straw, etc.) that have undergone harmless treatment and composting, and has the effects of both microbial fertilizer and organic fertilizer. While providing nutrients to crops, it also exerts the "decomposing" effect of biological bacteria. Its main technical indicators are: effective live bacterial count (cfu), 100 million/g ≥0.2; organic matter (calculated on a dry basis), % ≥40.