Neal Wagar with EcoTea and Mary-Jane Orr, general manager of Manitoba Beef and Forage Initiatives, test soil treated with EcoTea during a field day at the organization's Brookdale farm on Aug. 12, 2025. Photo: Miranda Leybourne

EcoTea microbial soil treatment gets stress-tested at MBFI

EcoTea biostimulant was applied to cereal forage crops at Manitoba Beef and Forage Initiatives north of Brandon this year, with some initially good results

Plot research on a microbial biostimulant at Manitoba Beef and Forage Initiatives’ farm points to modest yield advantages for growers, though field variations may sway the data. Further study is planned.

Agriculture is challenged to understand how microbes work together in the environment and how new mirobiological tools will co-exist or leverage those relationships.  |  Mike Raine photo

Big farm thinking about tiny agricultural micros

Questions are being asked with the rise of research and product releases for microbiological tools in agriculture

A significant hurdle that manufacturers of microbial-based cropping products must overcome is of their own making. “We’ve created our own problem by overpromising what biologicals are capable of doing, and so we’re living with that right now and it’s a bit of an inflection point where we’re trying to change that image, be it with […] Read more