Your dear sessile plants are non vegetarians??

Agriculture is an acquired art and a cascading science that has evolved over the centuries in understanding interspecies relationship and dependency. Soil is worshipped for its ability to grow lives. Nutrition management mechanism in plants ?involves poetic justice to the tiniest creatures of the world - the microbes. Plants lure and stimulate the microbes with carbon and sugar to harness minerals in organic forms for them. Association of plants and microbes is critical for both but plants also ‘eat’ microbes. Surprised ?

Plants that have a strong association with mycorrhizae and rhizophagy have high photosynthetic activity because of the increased demand by the fungi and bacteria for carbohydrates. Microbes help the plant accumulate the nutrients it needs to optimize photosynthesis. Nitrogen is converted into amino acids, and amino acids are converted into proteins. Crop plants that have strong mycorrhizae and rhizophagy have immediate, on-demand access to the mineral nutrients that are essential cofactors for the enzymes that facilitate this synthesis: Fe, Zn, Mn and many more..

Plants accumulate nutrients in several different ways. Two of these — mycorrhizal root colonization and rhizophagy — have become recognized as particularly important. When these systems function at optimal levels, their cascading and compounding effects do more than supply simple nutrients to the plant: they actively drive and maintain plant health. In fact, that through these processes, plants are able to accumulate even large, complex molecules such as fatty acids, which significantly contribute to plant health.

Mycorrhizae literally translates to “fungus-root.” The plant and the fungus have a mutually beneficial relationship in which the fungus facilitates water and nutrient uptake in the plant and the plant provides food and nutrients, created by photosynthesis, to the fungus.

“Rhizophagy” means “plants eating microbes.” It is a process in which bacteria and fungi cycle between a free-living phase in the soil and a plant-dependent phase within cells of plant roots. Plants attract beneficial microbes to their rhizosphere by producing the exudates they feed on. Microbes obtain nutrients (nitrogen and minerals) in the soil, and the plant then extracts these nutrients.?Inside the root tip, plant’s reactive oxygen degrades the cell walls for extracting nutrients from microbes. Bacterial cell walls contain phospholipids and lipopolysaccharides that, when broken down, release fatty acids and carbon skeletons. These can enter the plant’s metabolic pathways and potentially be reassembled into various lipid forms, including triglycerides, which serve as energy storage.

It is not the application of more and more fertilizers but making the association between plants and microbes subtle and stronger that is critical for a thriving biology in the soil and robust crops to grow. This, in short, explains why natural and organic farming is THE Agriculture. ?