Soil Biology - Microbes: Part IV: THE CARRIER

(Shelf-life & Food) - The Final Step Above & Beyond

The carrier for the microbes is just as (if not more) important than the diversity and balance. It can make or break their viability when you actually go to use them! Most microbial products are in liquid form, usually because the maker wants the product to easily go into solution. The problem is that this liquid form exponentially decreases the shelf life of the product. Once placed in a stagnant solution, microbes will plume for a short period then begin to die off. You know those little particles settled out to the bottom of the bottle? What you’re seeing is dead microbes. The darker the solution, the more dead microbes in the bottle. Very sad.

The other microbial products form is dry, where the microbes are actually encased to extend shelf life, however; the encasement provides no additional benefit to the system. Usually the microbes are encased in a clay carrier which can clog systems and even affect soil consistency. It doesn’t feed the microbes, facilitate activity, or provide any nutrition. The microbes must free themselves from that clay carrier to become active so there is a lag between when the microbes are placed in solution and when they begin to become active and grow. There is a better solution to this problem!!

The best way to go about solving this problem is to meet in the middle. You need food so the microbes can become active as soon as they enter a solution. At the same time, you need something dry to preserve shelf life such that the claims for CFUs on your packaging are actually what is delivered at time of use. Key To Life designed a solution to this problem by encase our laboratory grown microbes in a dry-form mixture of sucrose, dextrose, amino acids and brewers yeast! This unique delivery method extends shelf life (roughly a 10% loss of viability over 10 years) while also providing all the food the microbes need to enter the log phase of growth (exponential growth). In a 24 hour period, our microbes go from being about 160x stronger than our leading competitor to being about 5000x more potent when properly brewed.

So while this blog isn’t about selling our products, we just can’t help but mention our absolute favorite!