We never talk enough about Phosphorus

The title of this article is deliberately provocative, but not overly so. Phosphorus is one of the most critically managed nutrients in agriculture, given its importance for plant nutrition and its scarce availability.

It’s part of the macronutrient triad together with Nitrogen and Potassium, it comes into play in photosynthesis, in energy transfers (as a component of ATP), in protein synthesis, in flowering, in the strengthening of cell walls, in vegetative development and in many other basic processes. The availability of phosphorus for cultivated plants is therefore essential to guarantee yields.

As we have already had the opportunity to explain in another study, today’s farmers operate in a context of great uncertainty and increasing costs in terms of supplying phosphate fertilizers.

On the one hand, we highlight the progressive depletion of available phosphorus sources, the apatite mines located mainly in North Africa, Russia, China and the USA.

On the other hand, phosphorus administered to soils in mineral form undergoes insolubilization and becomes unavailable to plants. In soils with a basic or neutral reaction, phosphorus is immobilized by calcium, with the formation of complex (insoluble) calcium phosphate. In acid-reactive soils, on the other hand, aluminum phosphate and ferrous phosphate form. In addition to these phenomena, any losses due to erosion also contribute. The picture, as a whole, defines Phosphorus depletion.

Phosphorus depletion is a phenomenon that can be effectively counteracted by aiming to maximize the efficiency of the fertilizer units distributed with fertilizers: reducing losses, on the one hand, and encouraging the solubilization of phosphorus already present in soils, on the other. And as we had the opportunity to explain in the article already mentioned, for Agribios, organic and organo-mineral fertilizers make it possible to achieve the first objective (releasing the nutrients slowly) the inoculations of useful microorganisms the second, thanks to the mineralization of the organic matter they exert.

In fact, it is estimated that up to 80% of the phosphorus contained in cultivated soils is present in organic form. Of this, about 50% is represented by phytates, or phytic acid salts, whose formula is C₆H₁₈O₂₄P₆.

The transformation of organic compounds containing insoluble phosphorus unavailable to plants into bioavailable inorganic molecules, occurs thanks to catalyzation by enzymes belonging to the phosphatase family (acidic, alkaline and neutral) and synthesized partly by plant roots and partly by soil microorganisms. Phosphatases also include phytases, capable of accelerating the mineralization of phytates.

A greater efficiency of phosphatases of microbiological origin has been demonstrated compared to those of plant origin, a fact that makes the use of microbial inoculates in fertilizers to promote the solubilization of organic phosphorus particularly interesting. The role of phosphatases in soil, and in particular in the phosphorus cycle, is recognized by the scientific community and extensively studied. For example, the influences exerted on soil phosphatase functions by climate change and agricultural practices are being studied.

The efficient management of crop phosphate nutrition and the fight against the phenomenon of Phosphorus depletion represent today’s agriculture circumstances, which Agribios Italiana intends to concretely respond to.

The company has always relied on its strength: the production of organic and organo-mineral fertilizers and inoculates with useful microorganisms.

More recently, Agribios has developed ECO BOOSTER, an active substrate obtained from exclusive controlled fermentation processes of natural substances, which, used in some specific formulations, promotes the growth of microbial species, giving rise to the highest quality fertilizers. The effect is shown on the useful microorganisms already present in the soils, as well as any additional ones, in the event of inoculated fertilizers being used.   The microbial consortia used for the production of Agribios inoculated fertilizers undergo efficacy tests that allow choosing in a targeted manner the most effective bacterial and fungal species while achieving specific objectives. This also applies to phosphatase activities, with the aim of obtaining inoculums capable of promoting balanced phosphate nutrition of crops without necessarily increasing the inputs of fertilizer units.

It is not only agriculture that benefits, but also the environment, in view of the progressive reduction of the sources of phosphorus available in the world.