A Powerful BLUEPRINT for Soil Health

This fall, Sound introduced BLUEPRINT™, an arbuscular mycorrhizal inoculant that works with plants to improve access to macronutrients, micronutrients and water. Sound’s research team spent years testing BLUEPRINT to ensure it’s easy to use and provides growers with consistent benefits. 

Written by Rachel Sim, with expertise provided by Anne Kakourdis, Research Scientist, and Calvin Murphy, Technical Agronomist. 

BLUEPRINT is simple; it’s an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi inoculant for growers. In addition to being one of the most common fungi in agricultural systems, AMF forms associations with a staggering 72% of flowering plants. Unable to produce their own food, AMF rely on plant roots for access to the carbohydrates they create through photosynthesis and in exchange, the fungi help extend the roots’ reach so the crop can access more nutrients and water. BLUEPRINT provides dormant, shelf-stable AMF spores to growers to help improve soil health and ROI. 

“Living biology is critical for sustainability, and products like BLUEPRINT are going to play a huge role going forward,” says Calvin. ​“As we reduce commercial fertilizer application, these products will act as stepping stones to help us meet those nutritional needs. BLUEPRINT can help growers capture phosphorus, nitrogen, water and micronutrients to breach that gap.” 

Sound’s flagship product, SOURCEⓇ, a microbiome activator, is already helping many growers improve their nutrient use efficiency (NUE), soil health and ROI by signaling beneficial organisms in the soil like phosphorus-solubilizing and nitrogen-fixing microbes and AMF to increase crops’ in-season access to these key nutrients. For Sound, a biological like BLUEPRINT that works in conjunction with SOURCE just made sense.

“While there are a lot of biologicals out there, they are really hard to make, and many products don’t persist for very long once applied in the field,” says Anne. 

One reason is likely because the soil is a harsher environment than the bacteria in biological products are used to. Lab media is a cushy place for bacteria to grow abundantly, surrounded by others of their kind, but in the field, there are other species to compete with. 

“That’s one reason that with SOURCE, we just activate the microbes that are already in the field,” says Anne. ​“We aren’t introducing new microbes that have to fight for a niche in the soil; they’re already there and we’re just waking them up.” 

On the other hand, AMF are challenging to make in the lab because they need host plants and take longer to reach maturity. But once produced, AMF can naturally persist for years in the field. Not only do AMF and bacteria not compete for the same niche, but spores will remain dormant in the soil waiting for when they’re needed by the crop for much longer. 

“Even when the spores do wake up, they have a more mutualistic relationship with bacteria, rather than competing with them,” says Anne. ​“It’s a very different interaction that you might get when adding additional bacteria.” One of AMF’s roles in the soil is to act as an intermediary between the crop and other bacteria, especially those the plant’s roots may not be able to reach on their own. 

The research team was committed to developing an effective, stable and potent inoculant that would be easy for growers to use and help unlock the myriad benefits AMF provide, including increased access to phosphorus, improved soil health and roots that can reach farther. Best of all, a fungal inoculant like BLUEPRINT can fit into almost any grower’s operation.

“Sometimes fungi can be harder to get established, because a lot of agricultural soils have higher bacteria populations than fungi, and that’s due in part to common soil practices that over the last several decades have depleted our soils,” says Calvin. ​“Practices like intense tilling, applying harsh pesticides or high salt fertilizers can be hard on our soil microbes, particularly fungi.”

“In agricultural systems, a lot of AMF have been lost because of things like tilling, over-fertilizing or fungicides,” says Anne. ​“All of these practices may be necessary at some point; if you have a fungal pathogen killing your crops, you may need to add fungicide. Unfortunately, you also kill off a lot of AMF.”

Luckily, that’s one place BLUEPRINT can come in, helping growers replenish or reinforce their AMF levels as needed.

AMF rely entirely on plants to grow, so in the soil, spores stay dormant until they encounter a root or are otherwise signaled by a plant. While BLUEPRINT works well on its own, the signal-boosting power of SOURCE means applying the products together can produce even bigger results.

“SOURCE gives a strong, consistent signal to AMF spores to wake up, so it’s really nice to bundle them together in the field,” says Anne. ​“The products work well independently, but together, you can get these synergistic interactions as SOURCE activates both microbes and AMF.” 

When SOURCE alone is applied, growers will activate beneficial soil bacteria for access to nitrogen and phosphorus as well as activating any native AMF. If soils are low in AMF, adding BLUEPRINT with SOURCE will boost the population and help growers ensure all parts of the soil system are ready to serve their crops. 

“Some microbes are miners, some are scavengers and others are carriers; for example, bacteria unlock nitrogen and phosphorus trapped in the soil,” says Anne. ​“AMF are both scavengers and carriers, picking up stray macro- and micronutrients and carrying those mined by bacteria and bringing it all to the plant.”

AMF also act as a nutrient and bacteria superhighway; bacteria can’t move around much on their own unless carried by water or hyphae, the thread-like strands that make up AMF. With both BLUEPRINT and SOURCE, growers can ensure there are both miners and carriers throughout the soil ready. 

“These products are a perfect fit,” says Calvin. ​“SOURCE activates all your soil microbes; not just bacteria or just fungi, but all of them. And we know that soils are typically heavier in bacteria, so BLUEPRINT gives us the ability to add fungi and ensure we have a very diverse population of microbes in our soil.” 

AMF also benefit soil structure by secreting a variety of proteins that not only protect hyphae, but also bind soil particles together to improve soil texture, increase soil organic carbon content, reduce wind and water erosion and increase water infiltration and retention. 

Although BLUEPRINT is still a relatively new product, Calvin is already testing it in his region. Based in Mississippi, Calvin says growers in his area deal with very weathered soils low in organic matter. To test the product, some fields were treated with both SOURCE and BLUEPRINT and some with just SOURCE. While full results will have to wait until after harvest, there are some noticeable visual differences already. 

“Once we got into really heavy pod fill for one of the soybean tests, the BLUEPRINT crops were standing taller,” he says. ​“We pulled three consecutive plants in a row in uniform spots in the row to try and be as fair as possible, and while that’s just one small snapshot in time, there were more pods, they looked more mature and we seemed to see more consistent three bean pods.” 

Of course, Calvin is still cautious at this stage. As all growers know, ​“it’s best not to count your pods until they’ve been successfully harvested.” 

“I’ve been trying to be very conservative in all my observations, but I’m optimistic,” he says. 

Making an AMF product is challenging, and there aren’t many available for large-scale agricultural use. Getting enough AMF spores for an effective product is tough and it’s important not to dilute the product’s potency too much. 

“A lot of the AMF products available on the market right now are for gardening,” says Anne. Sound’s research teams decided to tackle the challenge of bringing a potent and effective AMF product to the agricultural market. 

Anne is very committed to ensuring BLUEPRINT’s quality and efficacy. ​“I wanted to make sure the product was tested at different points in time, including after the expiry date,” she says. Vetting BLUEPRINT took a few years, and Sound’s researchers are always working on ways to extend shelf life and update products as new information emerges. 

“BLUEPRINT is the best commercial AMF product we have seen, and we’ll continue getting feedback from growers on things like ease of use that we want to take into account,” says Anne. 

As for Calvin, he thinks the best things growers can do to support AMF in their soil are to adopt practices that will help keep all soil biology alive, not just the fungi.

“We need to be wary of pesticides and high salt fertilizers that can be very harsh on the soil,” he says. ​“Fungicides may be necessary, but especially if you want to keep your AMF, be careful not to overuse them.”

It’s also important to remember that soil organisms, whether they’re bacteria that give access to free nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus or root-extending AMF superhighways, rely on plants. The relationship is symbiotic, so practices like cover cropping that keep plants in the soil as long as possible are providing food for the microbes. Reducing tillage will also help AMF and other bacteria thrive.

Practices like these will keep a diverse population of both bacteria and AMF in the soil,” says Calvin. ​“Diversity is important because some species help with water uptake, some help defend against pathogens and environmental stress and some help with nutrition.”

This summer, Anne attended Sound’s Dealer Kickoff event and had the chance to meet with growers and dealers and even show them what BLUEPRINT looks like under the microscope.

“Growers are scientists too,” she says. ​“They’re doing field trials, taking a chance on us and doing experiments in their own fields. We’re a lot more alike than we might think.”