How to Help The Plants:

There's a product available for sale, but you can also make it yourself, it just takes longer. It's called Mycorrhizal fungi.

Mycorrhizal fungi increases the surface area of plant roots helping the plant's ability to absorb nutrients, helps plants become more drought tolerant, improves soil structure, and suppresses diseases, which all leads to better plant growth and more food!

Apply it directly to the roots when planting or mix it into the soil. Minimize soil disturbance and reduce chemical use to protect these beneficial fungi.

Here is a great article that provides instruction on how to make it yourself:

 How to make homemade mycorrhizal fungi.

January 26, 2025 by Tony O'Neill, " ", Simplify Gardening <https://simplifygardening.com/how-to-make-homemade-mycorrhizal-fungi/>

Nobori, Tatsuya, "The plant microbiome: From ecology to reductionism and beyond (Annu.Rev.Microbiol)." Plant Science Research Weekly. June 26, 2020

https://plantae.org/review-the-plant-microbiome-from-ecology-to-reductionism-and-beyond-annu-rev-microbiol/

How Plants Recruit Their Microbiome

 "Recruit their microbiome" means that an organism, like a plant,

actively selects and attracts specific microbes from its environment

to establish a beneficial community of microorganisms around it.

Releasing chemical signals that attract certain microbes while deterring others,

thus shaping its microbiome to support its growth and health.

Choosing which microbes to include in its microbiome based on its needs. 

Plants recruit their microbiome from the rhizosphere, phyllosphere, spermosphere, anthosphere, and carposphere. 

In this article we will briefly discuss the rhizosphere and a simple way each of us can help our plants grow. 

The Rhizosphere

The rhizosphere is the zone of soil surrounding a plant root where the biology and chemistry of the soil are influenced by the root. This zone is about 1 mm wide, but has no distinct edge.