Dynamic Disease Control

This particular bacterium is one of the good guys, keeping fungal outbreaks under control.

It’s easy to see things happening in the spring garden: shoots peak out of the soil, leaves unfoil, buds burst open and everything grows seemingly overnight. But there is as much, perhaps, even more, happening that we can’t see with the naked eye.

Behind that patina of spring color and new life is a fierce battle raging throughout the garden, above the soil and below its surface, on leaves and amongst roots. Microbes are locked in territorial warfare, competing for space and resources to ensure their own survival and their expansion.

We tend to think of bacteria and fungi in the garden as the bad guys, to be eliminated in the pursuit of a pristine and ‘clean’ landscape, but some of these microbes need to be there, are beneficial and play a vital part in the garden’s ecosystem.