Horticulture increases in efficiency through

the use bees, bacteria and fungi.

In the following paragraphs I will address several issues faced in horticulture through the use of other
organisms.

Enriching the soil with organic humus is not as simple as dumping organic matter on land, a descent
amount of Microbes and fungi must also be present in order to break down the organic matter into a
piece of land so that plants may absorb it order to create proteins. One way to increase the efficiency of
this is to cultivate edible fungi in a horticultural farm. If the people managing the land are able to control
the amount of fungi on the land, they will gain immediate benefits such as the selling of mushrooms and
long term benefits as well such as the enriching of the soil through the addiction of humus. In addition
to this fungi can breakup minerals in the soil.

Due to the previous use of chemicals on the land, the amount of “Nitrogen fixing” bacteria would be less
than normal levels. Nitrogen fixing bacteria play an important role in agriculture around the world.
Several companies lab cultivate these bacteria that can be added to the land in order to fix atmospheric
nitrogen in the soil in the form of usable nitrates. What a nitrogen fixing bacteria does is, it reacts
Oxygen with atmospheric Nitrogen to form nitrates, which can be absorbed by the plant and converted
to proteins within the plants. If an agriculturalist is provided with only a moderate amount of these
bacteria, he may largely increase the growth of his plants, this also a mostly one time purchase since the
bacteria will reproduce and increase the amount of nitrogen being fixed.

Below are the company’s websites:

(Please find the companies and insert the link over here)

The following idea integrates the use of Bees and fungus into a single Idea. When artificial pesticides are
used, only 2% of them are actually having an impact, the decrease of pollinators is also a current issue in
agriculture. If fungus with antibacterial properties are put in a man managed bee hive, then when the
bees go out to collect nectar from flowers, they will also take some of the anti-bacterial fungi with them.
When they pollinate they will efficiently apply some of the fungus to the plants. This addresses the
issues of the lack of pollinators and the issue of harmful bacteria attacking the trees. The honey from the
hive can be refined and sold. In addition to acting as vectors to deliver natural pesticides, they could also
deliver nutrients. This is mostly applicable in the later stages of the project. The species of bee that I
recommend for this are Aphis Indicus and Aphis florea.

Based on the statements in the above paragraphs, I believe that the efficiency of horticultural lands can
be increase through the use of the methods above.

If there are any questions regarding any of the methods or any other agricultural issues, I can be
contacted at the email address cibikumar.k@ishahomeschool.org