MycoApply EndoThrive: Application efficiency, labor savings

© Photo courtesy of Mycorrhizal Applications

Most professional growers know about the many benefits of beneficial biological inoculants like mycorrhizal fungi. However, traditional mycorrhizal formulation types (granular, powder) have sometimes posed barriers to adoption by large-scale growers due to the necessity for an additional step in the production protocol required to apply these products.

In the past, mycorrhizal inoculants have largely been formulated with dry carriers, which can make handling and mixing the products more of a challenge in moist, humid greenhouse conditions. Previous generations of liquid mycorrhizal inoculant products have typically been limited by a relatively short product shelf life.

Mycorrhizal Applications (MA) has set out to solve those two problems for growers with its MycoApply EndoThrive formulation, which was released to the market in August 2021. Now, with the new formulation growers can store the product for up to two years (under appropriate conditions) and tank mixing is easier than ever (always follow product label instructions and rates).

“EndoThrive offers many advantages to growers, including its ability to be added to a liquid fertilizer stock tank and applied with a liquid fertilizer feed, which provides application efficiency and labor savings,” says Blair Busenbark, MA’s sales and commercial marketing manager. “This next-generation formulation has been successfully implemented in the agriculture markets for several years and is the culmination of the first hands-on collaboration between MA’s mycorrhizal experts, and our parent company Valent BioSciences’ expertise in liquid formulations.”

Flexibility is another tenet of this new mycorrhizae inoculant product from MA. According to Busenbark, it can be seamlessly added to crop production practices with no need for any additional steps in the production protocol. Inoculation can be achieved in a myriad of ways, including with irrigation or fertilizer application via boom spray, sprinkler, drip irrigation, hand spray, in-furrow, or any method that effectively drenches the crop plant’s root zone to get the propagules into direct contact with the growing roots.

Greenhouse growers that also maintain some outdoor production, or just like to keep the lawn looking nice around the facility, will also find the product advantageous, since the new formulation is also “ideal for in-field applications for turf or landscape due to its liquid carrier and compact packaging size.”

As far as digging into the science behind MycoApply EndoThrive, the formulation reportedly features four species of endomycorrhizae: Glomus intraradices, G. mosseae,G. etunicatum, and G. aggregatum. These symbiotic soil organisms benefit about 85% of plant species and are included at a very high concentration of 720,000 propagules per pint (available in pint bottles, 8 pints to a case).

And last but not least, with a product rate of 8 fluid ounces per 100 gallons of water, each one-pint bottle can make 200 gallons of application solution. For larger-scale growers, new MycoApply EndoThrive gallon-sized jugs are coming soon.