NUTRAFIX
NutraFix® Micronutrient Fertilizer is an innovative and patented fertilizer product formulated to restore micronutrient availability to perennial grassland plants and to increase soil organic matter by promoting the growth of long-lived and deep-rooted perennial grasses.
Through natural soil-based (edaphic) processes, nutrient additions are further cycled and enhanced by soil microorganisms, fungi, and insects, allowing late-successional plant life to thrive while outcompeting early successional species that are intolerant of the nutrient-rich soil solution.
The Edaphix® discovery that promoting micronutrient fertility in nutrient-depleted soil, results in rapid increases in vigor and density of desirable plants, accelerating plant succession. Secondary benefits include augmented infiltration caused by improved granular soil structure, leading to diminished runoff and increased soil water content. In companion, improved soil biological activity increases levels of dissolved organic carbon, fueling further microbial activity and mobilization of nutrients, thereby, restarting the near-dormant process of soil-building and nutrient cycling in unhealthy soil.
Degraded and low-productivity soil may be caused by many factors, including, but not limited to, climate change, overgrazing, fire, floods, and development. Natural soil-building processes commonly require hundreds, if not thousands, of years to develop an inch of soil. Waiting for natural soil renewal and rebuilding is beyond human time scales. NutraFix represents a new tool in the land manager and grassland health practitioner toolbox for empowering natural soil processes that lead to healthy soil and healthy perennial vegetation communities.
HOW DOES NUTRAFIX MICRONUTRIENT FERTILIZER WORK?
In much of our landscape, soil disturbances have resulted in degraded lands that are nutrient-depleted, allowing invasive undesirable plants to thrive. NutraFix is a micronutrient-based fertilizer that helps to restore the natural, edaphic soil conditions that native plants evolved under.
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Native plants are “selective nutrient consumers”: Native plants evolved in carbon-rich soil conditions that are biologically diverse and nutrient dense. Accordingly native plants have developed gate-keeping mechanisms that allow them to discriminate the types and amounts of nutrients they take-up from the soil solution. Native plants have been observed to thrive under applications of NutraFix as micronutrient levels are increased.
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Invasive plants are greedy nutrient consumers. Invasive plants, adapted to low-nutrient disturbed soils, are less able to regulate the uptake of supplementary micronutrients additions. Because they lack the natural mechanisms to regulate nutrient uptake the improved nutrient composition is not hospitable to such species.
NutraFix Micronutrient Fertilizer re-establishes the higher micronutrient fertility levels of late successional grasslands that are resilient and able to discourage invasive plant invasion.
Wildfire fuel reduction
Native perennial bunchgrasses can outcompete annual grasses such as cheatgrass, which is implicated in accelerating fire intensity and frequency.
Creates healthy soil
Development of deep-rooted and long-lived perennial plants facilitates capture and storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide by increasing soil organic matter.
Promotes the growth of native vegetation
Common rangeland grasses important to wildlife and livestock, such as bluebunch wheatgrass, western wheatgrass and Idaho fescue thrive in nutrient-dense soil.
NutraFix Micronutrient Fertilizer harnesses natural processes to revitalize soil health. By supplying vital minerals and reducing abiotic stressors, rhizosphere activity and nutrient cycling are enhanced. Fertilizer applications improve water penetration and soil structure through the mobilization of dissolved organic carbon.