Fish Brew Blog

We often talk about the soil food web as a static factor that is either there and healthy or damaged and absent but it is a lot more complex than that.  It is an everchanging ecosystem that shifts as it interacts with the greater ecosystem and environmental changes.  When working with farms and orchards, it is often important to have ways to measure the soil food web and assess the efficacy of efforts to influence it.

Nitrogen represents one of agriculture’s most critical yet paradoxical challenges.  The atmosphere contains abundant nitrogen gas that plants cannot access directly, yet feeding the world requires transforming this inert atmospheric resource into useable forms. In this post, we want to dive into how nitrogen gets to the plants, how agriculture can maintain productivity while progressively improving sustainability and resilience, and how Fish Brew can play a role in meeting those goals.

You have heard us talk about the diatoms in Fish Brew soil amendments like Bold FLO and Rise & Thrive, but what are they?  Well, the simple explanation is that they are single celled algae that live in the water.  But that would be selling them short. 

Read more to find out how they help in soils!

A 2023 study published in Scientia Horticulturae investigated how fish effluents, both water and water plus sludge, affect soil fertility, crop yields, and soil microbial communities when used as organic fertilizers. The researchers compared fish effluent treatments to composted horse manure, a standard organic amendment, while monitoring soil chemistry, plant growth, and microbial profiles.

 

How is Fish Brew a cheat code for better soil biology? 

Restoring the soil food web is not easy. It requires time, patience, and the right conditions. If you have worked with compacted or biologically poor soil, you know that even when you set up the right environment, you still have to wait for the microbes. It is an “if you build it, they will come” situation—and it is a slow process. Unless, of course, you bring the biology.

 

Sasha, Walker and Spencer join Bryan and Marco to talk Diatoms and look at more Fish Brew under the microscope.  

Bryan and Marco talk with Sasha, Walker and Spencer about Fish Brew, while Sasha and Marco explore the soil conditioners, plant probiotics and soil samples under the microscope.